Descant (Song of the Seraphim, Book 2)
Author's Note: This takes place, or begins to take place almost immediately after Fantasia ended, within days actually. The Slayers elements will start up around four years before TRY, or a year before the motion picture. It won't really start up until around a year after TRY.
Prologue
The red-headed individual swallowed nervously as his briefing wound to a close. Considering that he was in front of the single most active force in existence and one of the four strongest, this was not without some cause. "I understand."
The Almighty frowned. "Do you? Are you totally aware of your responsibilities, Anubis?"
Life, the one-time Warlord of Cruelty reflected, Was a great deal simpler when all I was just worrying about was surviving the next battle. Resettling his straw hat, he nodded again. "I believe I am aware, my lord. I am to over-see the trials of a warrior known at the moment as Trent Shadowlight. I am not to interfere at any time with his progress, only to ensure that he continues these trials when the last has been completed. I am only to do THIS after I have been informed directly by yourself to do so."
He received a nod of affirmation. "Other forces and entities will undoubtedly be involved in this, though no one save three others will be privy to the entire story regarding this individual's...actions. Though others will interfere, you may not attempt anything."
Anubis nodded once more. "I will see to it, but I have one last question, in regard to the means of transport to his next...location."
"Proceed."
He'd chosen to continue wearing the guise of a buddhist monk, including the staff of the Ancient One; his armor still had a few too many memories associated with it. Fiddling with the ties of his hat once more, he continued. "After watching his actions in the Lodoss time-line, I've come to the conclusion that he will most likely refuse to go. I understand that he must continue regardless, but what of the people who may attempt to follow?"
With a sweep of his hand, the Almighty formed a viewing portal with a simple series of digets in it. "He has a great many ordeals to go through. If any wish to follow, you are to take them here. In one year of their relative time, he will arrive. As time will be extremely convoluted in this regards, you will be forced to engage in time travel yourself. After a time, you will be allowed to explain everything to them."
Anubis gave the number a strange look. "Uh, do pardon my question, but aren't those coordinates just a pocket dimension in the astral plane? And how will I be able to explain anything to them?"
He chose to answer the unspoken along with the unspoken. "This...activity will eventually have a final destination. At that time this pocket dimension will be integrated with that final destination. As to how you will be able to explain, you will be made privy to all details as this nears its completion." Banishing the viewing plate, He rewove it into a portal. "Your main purpose is not to actually send him away, but to provide a sort of targetting correction means for the powers that will send him along his way. It is time for you to go."
--------
Pirotess stared in shock at where Trent and his horse had use to be. Mere minutes ago, they'd been riding off, then the next thing she knew, a lightning bolt large enough to engulf large houses had struck him. For one who had just fought off a goddess, it seemed such a paltry way to go.
Deed's shock was slightly less; mainly as she had a target to direct her whirlwind of emotions towards. "Wha...what happened?"
Anubis grimaced. I wish they'd told me that his mode of transport would be so...overly-dramatic. They should have tried for a quiet vanish; that strikes me more as his personality. Turning to the high elf, he told her what little he knew. "Trent was sent elsewhere. He helped this world once so far, and apparently he's needed in a completely different one."
He began to regret his words as rapiers were drawn from currently less shell-shocked female elves. "So...you're the reason he's gone?"
Anubis sighed as they attacked. He'd become a LOT more easy-going than he'd once been, but just sitting back and letting himself get impaled was not something he would calmly take. Still, they were justified to an extent, so he'd just stop them.
A few seconds later, he straightened his hat, regarding the two stunned (from startlement and not blows to the head) young women on the ground. "I would tell you more, but I'm not privy to the entire story myself. I can tell you this much; I'm not allowed to let you follow him, but I CAN take you somewhere you and he will be able to reunite in one year...relatively."
Deed stared at him, hope in her eyes. "We can see him again?"
Pirotess was a bit more pragmatic. "What was the 'relatively' for?"
Wince. "As I said, I'm not being told the whole story myself. All I can tell you is that he will be going through many more trials. A great deal more time will pass for him than a year, but it will only seem that long to you." He shrugged helplessly. "I truly am sorry, but my only other option in this case is to simply leave you here..." He squeegee blinked as they shot within inches of his face.
"Where do we go?"
"Um...there, I suppose," he said uncertainly as another more sedate portal opened. Then wondered how they were moving that fast.
--------
Trent groaned quietly as he came to. He wasn't totally sure why, but he had this strange feeling that he should be feeling deja vu. Rubbing his head distractedly, he peered around the clearing he'd ended up in. Whatever had happened, severe headaches were apparently added into the mix for no immediately apparent reason. "What hit me?"
As he was at the moment alone (the horse didn't count), no answers were forthcoming. Shaking his still groggy head, the dark elf turned to try and find someplace that didn't hurt his head quite so much.
"Well, well, what do we have here?"
Trent turned to regard the various scruffy-looking (and judging from other sensory data, unbathed for the past few decades) thugs popping out of the shrubbery. "I think you have an elf here. I think."
The leader laughed openly; a short, bandy-legged man in maybe his mid twenties sporting buck teeth and a bald spot. "An elf, eh? Never heard of 'em. Not that that's any trouble with us. Provided you don't put up any more fuss than most folk about your purse. Get me?"
Trent stared at them tiredly. Great. Bandits. Raving moronic bandits at that. Peachy. His hand went on autopilot as it shifted to the katana across his back.
Noting the movement, the fifteen or so would-be brigands started edging forward, cutlasses or nail-embedded clubs at the ready for what should prove to be a thrilling melee."
"HOLD IT!"
The combatants paused to regard the interloper. Said interloper proved to be a skinny, short, and under-developed soon-to-be-infamous-bandit-killer redhead. The bandit leader frowned. "Who the hell are you?"
Lina Inverse (you knew it would be her, right?) tossed her hair and grinned hungrily. "I, am Lina Inverse, the beautiful young sorcery geniu...HEY! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"
Following the revelation that their other opponent would be a thirteen year- old kid with delusions of adequacy, they'd turned back to begin that weird dance of slowly inching towards their opponent while random screen-slices portrayed various portions of their anatomy. You know, usually the eyes or a bulging forehead vein, or sometimes a shifting grip with the hand.
Come on, how much danger could the kid be? (1)
Said kid was clenching a fist hard enough to make pseudo-veins pop out. "How dare you...how DARE YOU IGNORE A BEAUTIFUL GIRL LIKE ME?!?!?!" Cupping her hands, she started chanting. "Oh, source of all power, light which burns beyond crimson, let thy power gather in my hand. FIREBALL!"
Trent, preparing to cut down several of the dumber or braver (he wasn't sure which) nearest bandits, froze for a second as a deafening blast of fire and energy turned half the gang into twitching and horrifically singed chunks of bandit.
Freezing turned to sweat drops as the rest of them turned on the now- apparently-QUITE-accurate-in-her-original-introduction sorceress flinging around fire bolts with the occassional scream of, "FLARE ARROW!" or "BURST RONDO!"
Sweat-drops ceased to be sufficient as he realized this skinny little girl had just decimated a small platoon of...well okay, they were idiots, but still. And done it in under half a minute. Conclusion? Getting on this girl's bad side would prove to be very, VERY, INCALCULABLY bad.
The girl sighed as she began rolling over the still groaning bandits to try and loot the little gold they had. "Ah man, don't any of these bandits take pride in their work anymore? How am I supposed to make any profits if all the bandits I take out are dirt-poor idiots?"
"Uh, Miss?"
"Hmmm?" The soon-to-be-infamous sorceress turned to regard the confused black-clad elf. "Oh, no need to thank me or anything." Her eyes lighting up, she zoomed forward. "Although if you were to offer me a free meal or any treasure as I reward I'd certainly accept it!"
Trent squeegee blinked. "Um, okay. I guess that's reasonable." Even if I could have dealt with them myself.
Oh, his poor, unsuspecting wallet.
--------
Trent gaped in shock at the sight of his 'saviour' putting away enough food to feed a few dozen people. Well, maybe a dozen even. Eight, certainly. "Geez, does your magic burn a lot of calories or something?"
"Hmmm?" Lina looked up from the four cubic feet of roast beef currently occupying her mouth. Pausing long enough to swallow, she shrugged. "Maybe. Never really thought about it." With that, she resumed vaccuuming her plate.
Trent shook his head. I THINK I can pay for this. I hope. "Um, I actually wanted to ask you a few questions about your magic and stuff."
Polishing off the last chunk of roast, Lina washed it down with a tankard of wine before answering. "Sure! What did you want to know?"
Trent scratched his head in confusion as he tried to think of the best way to phrase his question. "Well...let me put it this way. I've been out of touch for a REALLY long time. I don't even really know where I am. I was just kind of curious about how many sorcerers or sorceresses like you there are locally."
Lina waved that aside airily. "Oh, not that many. I mean, there are the guilds and such and...Wait a second. How could you not know about magic? Who the heck are you?"
"Trent. Trent Shadowlight. Oh, and I remembered you said your name was Lina?"
"Yeah. Okay Trent, you mind explaining how you couldn't know about magic from around here? Mages are damn near all over the place, so where did you come from?"
"I..." Trent paused, trying to get an answer. His memory was apparently in bad shape; he remembered some things about a place called Marmo, and Lodoss. He also vividly remembered fighting off some kind of monster or demon or goddess with a pair of weird swords (he'd checked for them earlier, and they'd apparently come to no harm.) "...I really don't remember very much at all."
--------
Falaris stared at Anubis in dull shock from their mutual viewing portal. As Trent was of particular interest to the god of Night, he'd chosen to keep regular tabs on him. Anubis, well...it was kind of his job.
Falaris was also on the up-and-up about Anubis's job, to the same degree as Anubis himself. But this? "Selective amnesia for a plane-walker? Do you have ANY idea at all how painfully cliched that is?"
Anubis winced painfully. "It wasn't my decision; I'm just a convenient spear carrier, so to speak. I can understand that if he remembered everything he'd probably spend all his time trying to get back but..." he winced again. "...that has to be the worst possible way to keep him here."
It really was PAINFUL.
--------
Lina shook her head. "Can't remember anything at all?"
Trent shrugged. "Well, I can remember bits and pieces, so I assume it's amnesia or some other horribly over-used plot device. Anyway, how many mages are there that might be around your power level?"
"Oh, not that many. I mean, of course there are going to be powerful wizards and such, but not many are going to be able to pull off REALLY powerful stuff."
Trent digested that for a moment. "Okay, how about that Fireball of yours. How many people can do that?"
Lina frowned. "I'm not really sure. Fireball's a medium level spell; some guilds use it as a measuring rod to determine between weak and strong casters, but I don't find that reliable. Quite a few, I guess."
Trent nodded. "Okay, last question. Where would I go if I was interested in learning magic?"
Lina waved that aside as well. "Like I said, there are lots of guilds or at least guild houses all over the place. Just ask around one of them if you want to learn." Standing up and patting her full stomach, she waved genially. "Well, gotta go."
The waitress nervously approached (she'd been too scared to come near earlier, for fear of losing a limb). "Um, sir? Your bill..."
Trent stared at the number at the bottom. Scrolling up and down, he was forced to admit that the individual costs for each dish had been fair; it was the sheer quantity that was doing the damage.
He had enough to pay, but it was a near thing.
--------
Trent stared irritably into a nearby brook as he reflected on the past two months. He would have been in an inn or something, but his budget was still recovering from the severe beating that one meal from the red-head had inflicted.
As it was, he was starting to get sick of this whole magic mess. He'd already tried a few magic guilds in nearby large cities, and the answer had invariably been the same; 'well, we're always eager to find people interested in studying the occult arts, but we just don't think you're cut out for our guild/school." Translation: "sorry buddy, but we're not teaching anyone who can't pay a LOT better than you can."
He'd also tried a few of the various 'wise-women' and 'village-elders' around the places, and had actually managed to learn two or three spells. Granted, they were just Lighting, Divine/Search, and Chaos String, but he'd gotten a lot farther with the unorthodox mages than he had the professional ones.
Then of course had been his one disastrous attempt to study at a temple. He winced at the memory of the priests deciding that as he was dressed in black and didn't look 100% human, he was a Mazoku (apparently this world's name for demons and monsters) and needed to be exorcised.
It had taken him a lot longer than he'd have preferred to sew up all the holes those 'Flare Arrows' had put in his clothing.
As it was, he was swiftly coming to the conclusion that magic was going to be a bit of a rough road for him. Hence his current decision to try and find a way into some kind of odd hermit's lab or something, maybe find an eccentric genius in a cave somewhere. Someone off the beaten path.
While in this world, he'd learned quite a bit from the village elders about the mythology and history here, and had chosen as his first destination the Kaatart mountains, where supposedly the legendary sorcerer Rei Magnus had met his fall. He figured if nothing else, there might be someone trying to dig through old relics who could teach him SOMETHING useful.
--------
He'd expected a place of spiritual and magical unrest; it had been fairly close to guaranteed. He'd expected howling goblins or such, and monsters guarding the place.
He was surprised on both counts.
The place was even worse than he'd imagined in the unrest. Just coming within a few miles had started to make his vision a little blurry. Actually setting foot near the mountains had resulted in a now-chronic headache.
Though at least there weren't any monsters guarding the place.
Poking around the place had actually been a bit of a disappointment. The legends said for sure that dragons guarded the place; not the dumb lumbering reptiles of his world, but more like relatively smaller versions of Mycen and Bramd. He'd discovered that to be true at least; it was QUITE disconcerting to enter a glade and suddenly find a few hundred black or gold dragons soaring all over the place.
He'd studiously avoided contact there; the dragons were there to guard the site of the water dragon king's last battle, and he doubted they'd appreciated him poking around. His biggest regret however was that people were sane enough to not try and expect to find anything here. EG, there wasn't a single person he could ask about magic except the dragons. And as noted above, he wasn't going near them.
He tried anyway for his secondary hopes, namely a book or even scroll telling something about magic that he could learn from. After a good week and a half of fruitlessly checking rocks and such, he was ready to go home.
VERY far away, Falaris grinned. He had plans for the strange elf, and now it actually looked as though he might not have to interfere. Just to be on the safe side however, he shifted the earth magics just a tiny bit in a certain area already subjected to severe stress. Too little and too finely cloaked to be noticed by magical senses, but it would serve his purpose.
Namely, dropping a very startled and soon thereafter irritated dark elf assassin down a LONG chute of stone.
--------
The fall knocked him unconscious for around an hour and a half (by his reckoning after he came to). When he regained consciousness, he found himself in the middle of a deep cave connected through a single, man-made tunnel to further areas in the subterrean.
Caves that have been sealed off for years tend to accumulate 'bad air.' Specifically, gases heavier than normal air (chlorine and other poisons) start to collect and condense in these lower areas, making them notably dangerous. Taking a deep breath, he started inside.
Within, he found a huge library; the entire cavern was around twenty feet wide and as high, over two hundred feet long and lined with bookcases the entire length. He couldn't stop to examine a lot, but he had a fair idea of where he'd ended up. There couldn't be that many repositories of sorcerous knowledge THIS big on the continent, and he could only think of one that would be situated here.
He'd stumbled (with a little unknown divine intervention) across the lab of Rei Magnus, said to be the strongest sorcerer who'd ever lived, and formerly one of the Seven shards of the Dark Lord Shabranigdo.
Oh yeah, he'd hit the jackpot.
He didn't stay all that long at first; he just grabbed some of the plainest looking books closest to him and scrambled into a shadow to teleport back topside.
Back outside, he opened the first book while relishing the taste of clean air; the air below must have been sealed there since well before the war of the monster's fall to have gotten that stagnant. Inside, he found little of use; it was mostly a journal that had been written over what he assumed was a very common spellbook. Still, there was one spell in particular that would be useful. Diem Wind. A spell that did nothing but generate powerful winds, it would still be perfect for clearing the place out of all the reek. Even better, it was a fairly easy one; even with his limited spell knowledge, he could pull it off.
First though, he'd have to make sure not to damage anything down there.
It took him a while to properly master the spell in the first place; weeks before he'd found a useful spell for the cleaning later. The tedious part had been moving all the books; knowing the location know he could shadow- walk in between the surface and the library, but since he couldn't risk damaging all the books there he could only stay down there for maybe a minute before he had to get Good air in his lungs. Shadow-walking back and forth that much to transport the books into a pit he'd created with another fairly easy spell (Bephis Bring), he eventually reached the point where the library was empty.
Once the air below had been cleared, he'd started unsealing further labs to air them out sufficiently; by that point he'd been forced to return to some nearby villages for supplies and food; he was especially low on sacks and other carrying recepticles. By that time everything he'd started airing out was habitable enough that he could handle maybe an hour at a time before he needed air.
As he'd expected, the lab was much bigger than the simple library he'd started at; other labratory areas, astral observatories, and other things he hadn't the faintest idea about sprawled in the bedrock.
And no one else even knew it existed.
Trent grinned.
--------
Years passed.
Trent couldn't spend too long in the place at a time; maybe a month at most each time he practiced and such. He also couldn't spend all his time just going inbetween the village and the lab; the LAST thing he needed was attention to his odd activities.
As it was, he spent most of the time roaming around, learning what he could. Most of that tended to be from the four or five books of magic he took with him following each return to the lab. He was able to learn and master most of the spells with enough time; he was even able to alter and improve (in his opinion) on a few of them.
Of particular interest to him was the information that kept cropping up regarding a short-tempered redhead that he had a sneaking suspicion he'd met before. He often wondered if he'd run into her again while he wandered around the continent. The time he spent in the actual lab itself was mainly limited to conducting experiments in the workshops. Of particular interest to him was a strange metal called orihalcon that Rei had apparently stockpiled. Having access to comparitively large amounts of a material that could weaken if not outright nullify other magic would give him huge advantages in time.
He eventually sealed the lab after a few years (and one particularly unpleasant encounter with another sorceress), though he'd altered the lay- out enough to let the air circulate somewhat. Not much, but every little bit helped as far as he was concerned.
In the time he'd holed himself up there, he'd gained LOTS of power in magic; he'd actually found texts detailing how to invent spells and used what he understood to be forgotten spells.
More than that, he'd gained scads of equipment useful not only for dealing with the mages of this world, but also to handle the other forces he understood were present. Most importantly of all, he'd begun to remember bits and pieces of his past, to piece himself together mentally.
He remembered the death of his father and family, the former by Shooting Star, the latter by Alanian soldiers. He remembered the tales King Fahn had told him about his father's battle against Shooting Star; how supposedly the dark elf ranger had managed to stand up to an ancient dragon. Granted Trent had done the same, but he'd had Soul Crusher and Falis's Breath at the time; a LOT more power.
The only troubling memories concerned the people he knew best. He could remember Slayn and Leylia, Woodchuck, Etoh, and Ghim; he especially remembered Ashram. The troubling part was that he couldn't for the life of him remember anyone else, and he knew for a fact they were something important. He only wished that he could figure out why only those memories seemed blocked to him.
Oh well. It was time to face the world for keeps.
--------
Valgaav stared moodily at the cityscape spread out in front of him. It had been a year and a half, and he still felt it in his bones, that peculiar unrest.
He remembered more than he would have preferred; he could still see the death of his race, his entrance into the Monster race, his battles against Almeice and Lina, his death as a servant of Dark Star. His ressurection at the hands of the fallen god and dark lord.
He hadn't actually died at any point, as he understood it; it would have taken centuries for him to reach his adolesence if he'd been truly reborn as an infant. As he understood it, he had been...reformed, minus some of his rage and the monster taints. He was now what he'd been born as; Valtier, the last of the Ancient Dragons.
And he hated it; he despised being the last.
Staring to the north, he paused as some strange new energies started to grow, far away. Dragons as a rule were more sensitive than Mazoku, at the cost of raw power and ruthlessness. That, and the Ancient Dragons had one BIG advantage over normal dragons and Mazoku; empathically omnivorous, they could feed on both positive and negative emotions. (What that has to do with the story at the moment, I'm unsure of.)
Slit-pupiled eyes widened, streaked and scarred facial skin paled, and a canine-studded mouth dropped in shock at the energies. Th...that's impossible...isn't it?
Not hesitating for even a moment, he leapt off the roof, tearing off his blue vest in the process to uncase his black, feathery dragon's wings. Catching a leyline, he accelerated abruptly towards his target.
He would never forgive himself if he was unsure.
To be continued...
(1) - No, the bandits aren't THAT dumb or misinformed. Keep in mind that this whole story starts around a year before any of the real action of the Slayers series, including the motion picture. As such, Lina doesn't have the whole Bandit Killer and Dragon Spooker reputation yet.
Author's Note: This takes place, or begins to take place almost immediately after Fantasia ended, within days actually. The Slayers elements will start up around four years before TRY, or a year before the motion picture. It won't really start up until around a year after TRY.
Prologue
The red-headed individual swallowed nervously as his briefing wound to a close. Considering that he was in front of the single most active force in existence and one of the four strongest, this was not without some cause. "I understand."
The Almighty frowned. "Do you? Are you totally aware of your responsibilities, Anubis?"
Life, the one-time Warlord of Cruelty reflected, Was a great deal simpler when all I was just worrying about was surviving the next battle. Resettling his straw hat, he nodded again. "I believe I am aware, my lord. I am to over-see the trials of a warrior known at the moment as Trent Shadowlight. I am not to interfere at any time with his progress, only to ensure that he continues these trials when the last has been completed. I am only to do THIS after I have been informed directly by yourself to do so."
He received a nod of affirmation. "Other forces and entities will undoubtedly be involved in this, though no one save three others will be privy to the entire story regarding this individual's...actions. Though others will interfere, you may not attempt anything."
Anubis nodded once more. "I will see to it, but I have one last question, in regard to the means of transport to his next...location."
"Proceed."
He'd chosen to continue wearing the guise of a buddhist monk, including the staff of the Ancient One; his armor still had a few too many memories associated with it. Fiddling with the ties of his hat once more, he continued. "After watching his actions in the Lodoss time-line, I've come to the conclusion that he will most likely refuse to go. I understand that he must continue regardless, but what of the people who may attempt to follow?"
With a sweep of his hand, the Almighty formed a viewing portal with a simple series of digets in it. "He has a great many ordeals to go through. If any wish to follow, you are to take them here. In one year of their relative time, he will arrive. As time will be extremely convoluted in this regards, you will be forced to engage in time travel yourself. After a time, you will be allowed to explain everything to them."
Anubis gave the number a strange look. "Uh, do pardon my question, but aren't those coordinates just a pocket dimension in the astral plane? And how will I be able to explain anything to them?"
He chose to answer the unspoken along with the unspoken. "This...activity will eventually have a final destination. At that time this pocket dimension will be integrated with that final destination. As to how you will be able to explain, you will be made privy to all details as this nears its completion." Banishing the viewing plate, He rewove it into a portal. "Your main purpose is not to actually send him away, but to provide a sort of targetting correction means for the powers that will send him along his way. It is time for you to go."
--------
Pirotess stared in shock at where Trent and his horse had use to be. Mere minutes ago, they'd been riding off, then the next thing she knew, a lightning bolt large enough to engulf large houses had struck him. For one who had just fought off a goddess, it seemed such a paltry way to go.
Deed's shock was slightly less; mainly as she had a target to direct her whirlwind of emotions towards. "Wha...what happened?"
Anubis grimaced. I wish they'd told me that his mode of transport would be so...overly-dramatic. They should have tried for a quiet vanish; that strikes me more as his personality. Turning to the high elf, he told her what little he knew. "Trent was sent elsewhere. He helped this world once so far, and apparently he's needed in a completely different one."
He began to regret his words as rapiers were drawn from currently less shell-shocked female elves. "So...you're the reason he's gone?"
Anubis sighed as they attacked. He'd become a LOT more easy-going than he'd once been, but just sitting back and letting himself get impaled was not something he would calmly take. Still, they were justified to an extent, so he'd just stop them.
A few seconds later, he straightened his hat, regarding the two stunned (from startlement and not blows to the head) young women on the ground. "I would tell you more, but I'm not privy to the entire story myself. I can tell you this much; I'm not allowed to let you follow him, but I CAN take you somewhere you and he will be able to reunite in one year...relatively."
Deed stared at him, hope in her eyes. "We can see him again?"
Pirotess was a bit more pragmatic. "What was the 'relatively' for?"
Wince. "As I said, I'm not being told the whole story myself. All I can tell you is that he will be going through many more trials. A great deal more time will pass for him than a year, but it will only seem that long to you." He shrugged helplessly. "I truly am sorry, but my only other option in this case is to simply leave you here..." He squeegee blinked as they shot within inches of his face.
"Where do we go?"
"Um...there, I suppose," he said uncertainly as another more sedate portal opened. Then wondered how they were moving that fast.
--------
Trent groaned quietly as he came to. He wasn't totally sure why, but he had this strange feeling that he should be feeling deja vu. Rubbing his head distractedly, he peered around the clearing he'd ended up in. Whatever had happened, severe headaches were apparently added into the mix for no immediately apparent reason. "What hit me?"
As he was at the moment alone (the horse didn't count), no answers were forthcoming. Shaking his still groggy head, the dark elf turned to try and find someplace that didn't hurt his head quite so much.
"Well, well, what do we have here?"
Trent turned to regard the various scruffy-looking (and judging from other sensory data, unbathed for the past few decades) thugs popping out of the shrubbery. "I think you have an elf here. I think."
The leader laughed openly; a short, bandy-legged man in maybe his mid twenties sporting buck teeth and a bald spot. "An elf, eh? Never heard of 'em. Not that that's any trouble with us. Provided you don't put up any more fuss than most folk about your purse. Get me?"
Trent stared at them tiredly. Great. Bandits. Raving moronic bandits at that. Peachy. His hand went on autopilot as it shifted to the katana across his back.
Noting the movement, the fifteen or so would-be brigands started edging forward, cutlasses or nail-embedded clubs at the ready for what should prove to be a thrilling melee."
"HOLD IT!"
The combatants paused to regard the interloper. Said interloper proved to be a skinny, short, and under-developed soon-to-be-infamous-bandit-killer redhead. The bandit leader frowned. "Who the hell are you?"
Lina Inverse (you knew it would be her, right?) tossed her hair and grinned hungrily. "I, am Lina Inverse, the beautiful young sorcery geniu...HEY! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"
Following the revelation that their other opponent would be a thirteen year- old kid with delusions of adequacy, they'd turned back to begin that weird dance of slowly inching towards their opponent while random screen-slices portrayed various portions of their anatomy. You know, usually the eyes or a bulging forehead vein, or sometimes a shifting grip with the hand.
Come on, how much danger could the kid be? (1)
Said kid was clenching a fist hard enough to make pseudo-veins pop out. "How dare you...how DARE YOU IGNORE A BEAUTIFUL GIRL LIKE ME?!?!?!" Cupping her hands, she started chanting. "Oh, source of all power, light which burns beyond crimson, let thy power gather in my hand. FIREBALL!"
Trent, preparing to cut down several of the dumber or braver (he wasn't sure which) nearest bandits, froze for a second as a deafening blast of fire and energy turned half the gang into twitching and horrifically singed chunks of bandit.
Freezing turned to sweat drops as the rest of them turned on the now- apparently-QUITE-accurate-in-her-original-introduction sorceress flinging around fire bolts with the occassional scream of, "FLARE ARROW!" or "BURST RONDO!"
Sweat-drops ceased to be sufficient as he realized this skinny little girl had just decimated a small platoon of...well okay, they were idiots, but still. And done it in under half a minute. Conclusion? Getting on this girl's bad side would prove to be very, VERY, INCALCULABLY bad.
The girl sighed as she began rolling over the still groaning bandits to try and loot the little gold they had. "Ah man, don't any of these bandits take pride in their work anymore? How am I supposed to make any profits if all the bandits I take out are dirt-poor idiots?"
"Uh, Miss?"
"Hmmm?" The soon-to-be-infamous sorceress turned to regard the confused black-clad elf. "Oh, no need to thank me or anything." Her eyes lighting up, she zoomed forward. "Although if you were to offer me a free meal or any treasure as I reward I'd certainly accept it!"
Trent squeegee blinked. "Um, okay. I guess that's reasonable." Even if I could have dealt with them myself.
Oh, his poor, unsuspecting wallet.
--------
Trent gaped in shock at the sight of his 'saviour' putting away enough food to feed a few dozen people. Well, maybe a dozen even. Eight, certainly. "Geez, does your magic burn a lot of calories or something?"
"Hmmm?" Lina looked up from the four cubic feet of roast beef currently occupying her mouth. Pausing long enough to swallow, she shrugged. "Maybe. Never really thought about it." With that, she resumed vaccuuming her plate.
Trent shook his head. I THINK I can pay for this. I hope. "Um, I actually wanted to ask you a few questions about your magic and stuff."
Polishing off the last chunk of roast, Lina washed it down with a tankard of wine before answering. "Sure! What did you want to know?"
Trent scratched his head in confusion as he tried to think of the best way to phrase his question. "Well...let me put it this way. I've been out of touch for a REALLY long time. I don't even really know where I am. I was just kind of curious about how many sorcerers or sorceresses like you there are locally."
Lina waved that aside airily. "Oh, not that many. I mean, there are the guilds and such and...Wait a second. How could you not know about magic? Who the heck are you?"
"Trent. Trent Shadowlight. Oh, and I remembered you said your name was Lina?"
"Yeah. Okay Trent, you mind explaining how you couldn't know about magic from around here? Mages are damn near all over the place, so where did you come from?"
"I..." Trent paused, trying to get an answer. His memory was apparently in bad shape; he remembered some things about a place called Marmo, and Lodoss. He also vividly remembered fighting off some kind of monster or demon or goddess with a pair of weird swords (he'd checked for them earlier, and they'd apparently come to no harm.) "...I really don't remember very much at all."
--------
Falaris stared at Anubis in dull shock from their mutual viewing portal. As Trent was of particular interest to the god of Night, he'd chosen to keep regular tabs on him. Anubis, well...it was kind of his job.
Falaris was also on the up-and-up about Anubis's job, to the same degree as Anubis himself. But this? "Selective amnesia for a plane-walker? Do you have ANY idea at all how painfully cliched that is?"
Anubis winced painfully. "It wasn't my decision; I'm just a convenient spear carrier, so to speak. I can understand that if he remembered everything he'd probably spend all his time trying to get back but..." he winced again. "...that has to be the worst possible way to keep him here."
It really was PAINFUL.
--------
Lina shook her head. "Can't remember anything at all?"
Trent shrugged. "Well, I can remember bits and pieces, so I assume it's amnesia or some other horribly over-used plot device. Anyway, how many mages are there that might be around your power level?"
"Oh, not that many. I mean, of course there are going to be powerful wizards and such, but not many are going to be able to pull off REALLY powerful stuff."
Trent digested that for a moment. "Okay, how about that Fireball of yours. How many people can do that?"
Lina frowned. "I'm not really sure. Fireball's a medium level spell; some guilds use it as a measuring rod to determine between weak and strong casters, but I don't find that reliable. Quite a few, I guess."
Trent nodded. "Okay, last question. Where would I go if I was interested in learning magic?"
Lina waved that aside as well. "Like I said, there are lots of guilds or at least guild houses all over the place. Just ask around one of them if you want to learn." Standing up and patting her full stomach, she waved genially. "Well, gotta go."
The waitress nervously approached (she'd been too scared to come near earlier, for fear of losing a limb). "Um, sir? Your bill..."
Trent stared at the number at the bottom. Scrolling up and down, he was forced to admit that the individual costs for each dish had been fair; it was the sheer quantity that was doing the damage.
He had enough to pay, but it was a near thing.
--------
Trent stared irritably into a nearby brook as he reflected on the past two months. He would have been in an inn or something, but his budget was still recovering from the severe beating that one meal from the red-head had inflicted.
As it was, he was starting to get sick of this whole magic mess. He'd already tried a few magic guilds in nearby large cities, and the answer had invariably been the same; 'well, we're always eager to find people interested in studying the occult arts, but we just don't think you're cut out for our guild/school." Translation: "sorry buddy, but we're not teaching anyone who can't pay a LOT better than you can."
He'd also tried a few of the various 'wise-women' and 'village-elders' around the places, and had actually managed to learn two or three spells. Granted, they were just Lighting, Divine/Search, and Chaos String, but he'd gotten a lot farther with the unorthodox mages than he had the professional ones.
Then of course had been his one disastrous attempt to study at a temple. He winced at the memory of the priests deciding that as he was dressed in black and didn't look 100% human, he was a Mazoku (apparently this world's name for demons and monsters) and needed to be exorcised.
It had taken him a lot longer than he'd have preferred to sew up all the holes those 'Flare Arrows' had put in his clothing.
As it was, he was swiftly coming to the conclusion that magic was going to be a bit of a rough road for him. Hence his current decision to try and find a way into some kind of odd hermit's lab or something, maybe find an eccentric genius in a cave somewhere. Someone off the beaten path.
While in this world, he'd learned quite a bit from the village elders about the mythology and history here, and had chosen as his first destination the Kaatart mountains, where supposedly the legendary sorcerer Rei Magnus had met his fall. He figured if nothing else, there might be someone trying to dig through old relics who could teach him SOMETHING useful.
--------
He'd expected a place of spiritual and magical unrest; it had been fairly close to guaranteed. He'd expected howling goblins or such, and monsters guarding the place.
He was surprised on both counts.
The place was even worse than he'd imagined in the unrest. Just coming within a few miles had started to make his vision a little blurry. Actually setting foot near the mountains had resulted in a now-chronic headache.
Though at least there weren't any monsters guarding the place.
Poking around the place had actually been a bit of a disappointment. The legends said for sure that dragons guarded the place; not the dumb lumbering reptiles of his world, but more like relatively smaller versions of Mycen and Bramd. He'd discovered that to be true at least; it was QUITE disconcerting to enter a glade and suddenly find a few hundred black or gold dragons soaring all over the place.
He'd studiously avoided contact there; the dragons were there to guard the site of the water dragon king's last battle, and he doubted they'd appreciated him poking around. His biggest regret however was that people were sane enough to not try and expect to find anything here. EG, there wasn't a single person he could ask about magic except the dragons. And as noted above, he wasn't going near them.
He tried anyway for his secondary hopes, namely a book or even scroll telling something about magic that he could learn from. After a good week and a half of fruitlessly checking rocks and such, he was ready to go home.
VERY far away, Falaris grinned. He had plans for the strange elf, and now it actually looked as though he might not have to interfere. Just to be on the safe side however, he shifted the earth magics just a tiny bit in a certain area already subjected to severe stress. Too little and too finely cloaked to be noticed by magical senses, but it would serve his purpose.
Namely, dropping a very startled and soon thereafter irritated dark elf assassin down a LONG chute of stone.
--------
The fall knocked him unconscious for around an hour and a half (by his reckoning after he came to). When he regained consciousness, he found himself in the middle of a deep cave connected through a single, man-made tunnel to further areas in the subterrean.
Caves that have been sealed off for years tend to accumulate 'bad air.' Specifically, gases heavier than normal air (chlorine and other poisons) start to collect and condense in these lower areas, making them notably dangerous. Taking a deep breath, he started inside.
Within, he found a huge library; the entire cavern was around twenty feet wide and as high, over two hundred feet long and lined with bookcases the entire length. He couldn't stop to examine a lot, but he had a fair idea of where he'd ended up. There couldn't be that many repositories of sorcerous knowledge THIS big on the continent, and he could only think of one that would be situated here.
He'd stumbled (with a little unknown divine intervention) across the lab of Rei Magnus, said to be the strongest sorcerer who'd ever lived, and formerly one of the Seven shards of the Dark Lord Shabranigdo.
Oh yeah, he'd hit the jackpot.
He didn't stay all that long at first; he just grabbed some of the plainest looking books closest to him and scrambled into a shadow to teleport back topside.
Back outside, he opened the first book while relishing the taste of clean air; the air below must have been sealed there since well before the war of the monster's fall to have gotten that stagnant. Inside, he found little of use; it was mostly a journal that had been written over what he assumed was a very common spellbook. Still, there was one spell in particular that would be useful. Diem Wind. A spell that did nothing but generate powerful winds, it would still be perfect for clearing the place out of all the reek. Even better, it was a fairly easy one; even with his limited spell knowledge, he could pull it off.
First though, he'd have to make sure not to damage anything down there.
It took him a while to properly master the spell in the first place; weeks before he'd found a useful spell for the cleaning later. The tedious part had been moving all the books; knowing the location know he could shadow- walk in between the surface and the library, but since he couldn't risk damaging all the books there he could only stay down there for maybe a minute before he had to get Good air in his lungs. Shadow-walking back and forth that much to transport the books into a pit he'd created with another fairly easy spell (Bephis Bring), he eventually reached the point where the library was empty.
Once the air below had been cleared, he'd started unsealing further labs to air them out sufficiently; by that point he'd been forced to return to some nearby villages for supplies and food; he was especially low on sacks and other carrying recepticles. By that time everything he'd started airing out was habitable enough that he could handle maybe an hour at a time before he needed air.
As he'd expected, the lab was much bigger than the simple library he'd started at; other labratory areas, astral observatories, and other things he hadn't the faintest idea about sprawled in the bedrock.
And no one else even knew it existed.
Trent grinned.
--------
Years passed.
Trent couldn't spend too long in the place at a time; maybe a month at most each time he practiced and such. He also couldn't spend all his time just going inbetween the village and the lab; the LAST thing he needed was attention to his odd activities.
As it was, he spent most of the time roaming around, learning what he could. Most of that tended to be from the four or five books of magic he took with him following each return to the lab. He was able to learn and master most of the spells with enough time; he was even able to alter and improve (in his opinion) on a few of them.
Of particular interest to him was the information that kept cropping up regarding a short-tempered redhead that he had a sneaking suspicion he'd met before. He often wondered if he'd run into her again while he wandered around the continent. The time he spent in the actual lab itself was mainly limited to conducting experiments in the workshops. Of particular interest to him was a strange metal called orihalcon that Rei had apparently stockpiled. Having access to comparitively large amounts of a material that could weaken if not outright nullify other magic would give him huge advantages in time.
He eventually sealed the lab after a few years (and one particularly unpleasant encounter with another sorceress), though he'd altered the lay- out enough to let the air circulate somewhat. Not much, but every little bit helped as far as he was concerned.
In the time he'd holed himself up there, he'd gained LOTS of power in magic; he'd actually found texts detailing how to invent spells and used what he understood to be forgotten spells.
More than that, he'd gained scads of equipment useful not only for dealing with the mages of this world, but also to handle the other forces he understood were present. Most importantly of all, he'd begun to remember bits and pieces of his past, to piece himself together mentally.
He remembered the death of his father and family, the former by Shooting Star, the latter by Alanian soldiers. He remembered the tales King Fahn had told him about his father's battle against Shooting Star; how supposedly the dark elf ranger had managed to stand up to an ancient dragon. Granted Trent had done the same, but he'd had Soul Crusher and Falis's Breath at the time; a LOT more power.
The only troubling memories concerned the people he knew best. He could remember Slayn and Leylia, Woodchuck, Etoh, and Ghim; he especially remembered Ashram. The troubling part was that he couldn't for the life of him remember anyone else, and he knew for a fact they were something important. He only wished that he could figure out why only those memories seemed blocked to him.
Oh well. It was time to face the world for keeps.
--------
Valgaav stared moodily at the cityscape spread out in front of him. It had been a year and a half, and he still felt it in his bones, that peculiar unrest.
He remembered more than he would have preferred; he could still see the death of his race, his entrance into the Monster race, his battles against Almeice and Lina, his death as a servant of Dark Star. His ressurection at the hands of the fallen god and dark lord.
He hadn't actually died at any point, as he understood it; it would have taken centuries for him to reach his adolesence if he'd been truly reborn as an infant. As he understood it, he had been...reformed, minus some of his rage and the monster taints. He was now what he'd been born as; Valtier, the last of the Ancient Dragons.
And he hated it; he despised being the last.
Staring to the north, he paused as some strange new energies started to grow, far away. Dragons as a rule were more sensitive than Mazoku, at the cost of raw power and ruthlessness. That, and the Ancient Dragons had one BIG advantage over normal dragons and Mazoku; empathically omnivorous, they could feed on both positive and negative emotions. (What that has to do with the story at the moment, I'm unsure of.)
Slit-pupiled eyes widened, streaked and scarred facial skin paled, and a canine-studded mouth dropped in shock at the energies. Th...that's impossible...isn't it?
Not hesitating for even a moment, he leapt off the roof, tearing off his blue vest in the process to uncase his black, feathery dragon's wings. Catching a leyline, he accelerated abruptly towards his target.
He would never forgive himself if he was unsure.
To be continued...
(1) - No, the bandits aren't THAT dumb or misinformed. Keep in mind that this whole story starts around a year before any of the real action of the Slayers series, including the motion picture. As such, Lina doesn't have the whole Bandit Killer and Dragon Spooker reputation yet.