I'd best go through all the introductions again, you know just in case we die somewhere and some other hero manages to pick up the tattered remains of this scroll or something. Of course if you are a warrior who finds our ravaged corpses for the sake of all the Light Gods, get out of here before the same thing happens to you!! I'm sorry; my mind tends to go off like that, I'm not much for adventure, like I said.
Becca is a monk from the Order of the Fleet Fist. An interesting group that trains their followers to be experts at bare handed fighting. They train them to be fast so that the monsters they fight can't touch them. She doesn't wear a lot of armor, so if she gets hit, she gets hit hard, but they have to hit her. I'm sure she's one of their best. She's amazingly fast; she can take out a few monsters before they even realize that we've arrived. She tends to wear blue, even though her order prefers its devotees to wear red. I guess that's what happens when you get away from your order too long; you start wearing what you like. She claims that she hates red; she says that she doesn't like blood. She likes me well enough and I wear some red, but she's pretty forward about everything. Not really my type, but few people are really, Moksi says I'm too much of a hermit. Sorry, back to Becca, she's tall and pretty thin. Well, we're all pretty thin because of this journey. But she's lean and strong, with this long brown hair and these sharp blue eyes. She has a pretty average face in my opinion. You know, not to long or short, medium round eyes, nice average lips. Pretty average all around until she starts punching things.
Kyo is our Elemental Wizard. He's pretty much a master at controlling the elements and most of his spells make mine look useless in comparison. He's a frail little guy though, can't stand up to a powerful attack. He liked to hide his face in his hat up until we met up with the King of the Dragons and proved our worth as Warriors of the Light. He got rid of the hat after that. I asked him about it once and he told me that he considered himself shy, and well, not the best to look at, being thin and sickly at the best of times. I guess he's not so bad looking, too skinny for my taste, and like I said, very frail. It seems like I'm always healing him. The biggest weapon he can handle is a fighting knife, but he's pretty good with it. It was rough when we started, but he's getting better now. He makes up for his lack of prowess with a sword with his spells. He's got a few that can take out a city! He's a pretty nice person otherwise. He's not as talkative as me and not as critical of things as Becca. It was hard at the beginning, but now we all have things in common, so it's pretty easy to get him to talk to one of us. He's not at all hell bent on destroying the world, and even though it's said that his magic draws upon the black arts he doesn't give off an aura of evil. He's the kind of guy that if I'd meet in an Inn somewhere we might have been passing friends. As it stands now, he's a fellow worker of Power, and that makes him a friend pretty much automatically. We talk about working with divine and elemental power all the time. When he hasn't got his face buried in a book of scroll or some sort.
Moksi is the Fighter of our little rag tag band. Give him a sword and some armor and he'll plow through a line of monsters like they're not even there. Kyo has a spell that he can cast that makes him even faster. It's pretty frightening when he and Becca can move that fast, they can take out the enemy before they have a chance to strike. But Moksi, well, he's something special. He has this absolutely flaming red hair and these deep blue eyes that are always warm and tranquil, even when he's in battle, his eyes never show a blood lust. His face reminds me of some kind of young warrior god. He sometimes can have a calculating expression, but even that doesn't seem to be threatening to me. My heart beats faster just thinking about him. He's not at all gruff, like you'd expect a sword wielder to be, he's even more congenial than Becca. He's the one who really kept us all together, a bit like a caring older brother. He's built a bit like Becca but a lot larger, which I assume is from training in full armor. He's gotten a lot stronger since we started not to mention that since we trained with the King of Dragons, he could use pretty much any weapon he could get his hands on. He's just really great.
I kind of gave up trying to impress him, you know, what with me not being a fighter and all. All I wield are blunt maces and I'm not very good with even those. My specialty is healing and protection spells, although my order, we'll just call it the White Robes because the real name is, well, pretty dumb in my opinion, grants us spells that are good for use against the undead. I'm a kind of warrior against them, my spells can be pretty effective, and it's the one thing I that I can take some pride in.
I'm not much to look at either, not as skinny as Kyo, since I wield a mace that probably weighs as much as he does. I'm still pretty small though, at least compared to Moksi and Becca. I'm the healer of the group really, that's what the White Robes are really all about. We heal, and we hit things with maces, (we usually miss, unless you get special training, which needless to say I never really got). We'll destroy some undead too, if we can find them. I never went into caves much, but once we started this quest I became really good at casting them, which was good since we met up with a lot of those creatures.
I should probably state, for the record, that I'm male. You wouldn't of known it, even after I open my mouth, that's what Becca, says. I'm not sure what it means to talk like a girl, since most of the girls I know seem to talk the same as the boys, at least to me, but Becca insists I talk like a girl. I wear my brown hair long and I wear a long hood and robes, well Kyo does too, but after he got rid of the hat it was obvious that he was male. Even after I stopped wearing the hood it was hard to tell. Becca's convinced I was female at one time and that I had some accident at my Order that I'm not talking about, heh but that's Becca for you. I'll assure the reader that I've been male all my life, unless my parents didn't tell me something. Kyo couldn't really care less, he's got his nose in a scroll most of the time. Becca doesn't seem to mind either way even if she talks about it all the time, and Moksi agrees that they need me to heal battle damage. Sometimes I think that's the only reason that they keep me around, well that and managing to take care of the numerous undead that lurk in these infernal dungeons. Don't get me wrong; I've come in pretty handy in a few of those damnable dungeons that seem to litter this Light Forsaken Landscape. I've been the only one who could keep us alive. That's not pride, even though it's something I have precious little of, it's the truth.
This really isn't the place for confessions, but I might as well. Don't start to think that we're on our way to our last battle; every day is a last battle. Everyday we're retrieving something else for someone and saving a kingdom from falling into the darkness, risking our lives in the process. That's all well and good, but it's getting a little bit tiresome, we're not postal carriers, we're supposed to be heroes. Now we're getting ready go back in time, I'll explain later. At any rate, back to what I was going to say in the first place. I think I'm in love Moksi. I'm not sure it's obvious, it mustn't be obvious or else I'm sure Becca would have said something. If she notices something she speaks up on it, like my looking like a girl for example. I don't think a night goes by where she doesn't bring that up. Kyo might know, he just knows things sometimes. I'll stop there for now, this is getting long and the sun is going to set soon.
Yoruri rolled up the scroll and tucked it away in a pocket of his robe. Becca was busy shadow boxing while Kyo was alternating between muttering over an old scroll and tracing strange symbols into the ground with a stick. Moksi looked as if he had just finished repairing his sword and armor. Yoruri dusted off his long robes. He was most certainly due for some meditation but the sight of Moksi sans his armor in his simple cotton padded clothing was enough to make him too distracted to even try.
He sighed. Relationships between warriors and those of the White Robe Order weren't unheard of; even relationships when both parties were of the same gender were not highly uncommon so Yoruri wasn't afraid of the consequences. It was actually rather common, the relationships often started out in a necessity. The warrior needs someone to heal them when the battle gets too tough and the Healer needs protection from the monsters of the uncharted lands. Yoruri had plenty of friends whose relationships that had started that way, so did Kyo. Moksi was sure to have an open mind. He just wasn't brave enough to say anything. He knew he had a soft heart and if Moksi said no, Becca would never let him hear the end of it and he knew that would drive him almost to distraction. He'd be no good at keeping his companions alive if that happened. He stared at the warrior as the light of the sun dimmed. The red of the setting sun seemed to glow off his hair and made a halo around his young face. He offered up a few prayers for strength and guidance. His Lady of Light had never failed him, his faith was unshaken, and he needed that faith.
"We're going to have to camp out here tonight!" Becca announced to no one's surprise. Having just exited another dungeon no one was planning on making the half a day's trek back to town, especially through the monster infested countryside. The trip into the Sky Castle had left them pretty low. Becca's voice jolted him back into reality. He gathered up his scattered things and then helped Kyo organize his ever-growing collection of scrolls.
"I think I may have figured out they enchanted these shirts!" Kyo announced waving the white and black shirts in Yoruri's face when he came to help. "If I can get it right we wouldn't have to worry about only being able to cast our spells a few times a day!" Kyo had always hated that rule of the Power. The Power drained the body and to cast powerful spells more than a few times a day could kill a mage easily.
"I don't know if that's a good idea, Kyo. If Lady Light wanted us to be able to do that…"
"Yes, yes…" Kyo waved him off. He was gripping the black shirt so hard his knuckles were turning white. His eyes were getting that gleam that made him nervous.
"Besides…" Yoruri lowered his voice. "What if one of those Fiends got a hold of something like that?" That was a real danger and the thought was enough to make his stomach sink with worry. Did the Fiends have things like these? Who left these things in these dungeons? Questions he may never get the answers too.
Kyo looked thoughtful and slightly downcast. "Yes, your right about that, but…" he turned a pair of big yellow/green eyes and stared Yoruri with such a childlike look that he couldn't be frightened by the odd color. "I may not figure it out, but I could always keep trying right? No harm in trying right?!?"
Yoruri chuckled. "Of course, Kyo, there's never harm in trying. I'll even put in a good word for you with the Light Lady." Kyo was pretty simple when it came to things like that. He never cared much for the spells, it was the learning the spells that he loved. His passion for learning was incredible.
Kyo fairly beamed with childlike glee he stared at the pair of shirts with a new reverence. Becca was busy rummaging through the bag for one of the magic houses they'd invested in back in town. They were expensive but it was better than just sleeping in a bedroll under the stars. You slept much sounder when there was a magically enchanted wall between you and the legions of Evil that were out for your blood. Becca tossed the tiny little box into an open area and within moments a hut appeared. The hut was large enough to contain two bunk beds on one side, a table and cooking stove in the center and camber pot and sink for washing on the other. It was a humble affair, but a blessed one compared to spending the night fending off wandering monsters. Becca threw her traveling bag on the top bunk of the set of beds furthest from the wall and Kyo chose the bed under her, which left Yoruri and Moksi to share a bunk. It was nothing unusual, but at least they had the ones near the wall. Perhaps Becca and Kyo were sick of hearing him fall out of the bed at night. Yoruri hadn't done much traveling up to this point and wasn't particularly good at sleeping in a confined space. His bed back at his Temple had been on the floor, leaving him plenty of room to roll around to his hearts content.
Kyo spread out his work on the table. Becca managed to contain it to a small space and then started to help Yoruri get dinner. The stove was as magical as the house and provided two meals. It was just a matter of coaxing the meal out of the stove before it burned up. Becca was also doing her best to make sure the stove stayed lit that night. The magic had a tendency to want to go out at night and since they were spending the night in the desert, Becca had no mind to be cold.
Dinner was served amidst talk about where they were going to go next. The destination seemed obvious in Moksi's mind. They needed to head back to the beginning, to the place where they had fought Garland so long ago. Becca wasn't so sure and she made sure that everyone knew it.
"The crystals are all lit, what more do we have to do?" She stabbed her spoon down into her soup, a gesture that made more of a mess than it had any effect. "We've done what this prophecy has said that we'll do."
"You saw the power lines through the window up there." Moksi pointed up at the ceiling. "The power is all concentrated on that Temple. At the very least we could go back and see what's going on. Remember the Sages at Crescent Lake were talking about some kind of Time Loop? We need to go and talk to them."
"We fought the Fiends once, we don't want to have to fight them again." Kyo noted give the ceiling a meaningful glance. "You don't want to have to fight Tiamat's guard again."
Becca's face turned pale. Tiamat's guardian had been some sort of ancient machine gone haywire and it had nearly killed them all. Kyo's reminder silenced any more opposition. Anything was better than the thought of going up to that Castle again.
We've settled down for the night so I can write some more and try to at least remember all the pages that I'd lost. Kyo is doing more research into all those magical items we found. He really wants to figure out how the enchantment was placed.
But that's not really important. I'll try to start from the beginning. Where we're all from isn't really that important, what's important to know is how we all met in the first place. We all had the same really strange dream and we all woke up with this crystal in our hands. Then, well, then we all found each other in various interesting ways, but that's not really important either. The Light Lady led us together, of that I'm sure. She is the one who brought us together and keeps us together. I wonder if it's a test for me. Although I really doubt it, my faith is never really in question. We all made the long journey to this world and found it in chaos. We were deposited near Cornia will little more than 400 gold pieces to our names, just about 100 each. We went to see the king and received no aid, he just wanted us to rescue his daughter who had been captured by Garland, a knight gone rouge. Then he said he would rebuild the bridge that connected his country to the other lands. We didn't have much choice, and bearing our crystals we set out to do what we had too. It's been hard all around, getting supplies, armor and weapons. It was especially hard in the beginning when there was little money to be found.
Garland proved to be no problem and I think Princess Sarah was really taken with Moksi. She gave him, well she said she gave it to all of us, but I know it was really just for him, a Lute, which she said was magical. We crossed the bridge to visit an old blind witch that we'd heard about. The poor thing was blind as a bat without a Crystal Eye that she used to see. There wasn't much we could do to help her at the time so we just continued on our way to Provoka, the sea town. We arrived there to find the place near deserted. We found one man, sporting a blue mokawk of all things, who told us that pirates had overrun the town. Bikke, I think his name was, it's been a long time. Well, he sent his crew after us and we just knocked them out. Kyo hit them with a sleep spell and the ones that didn't fall asleep we gave a few bumps. Bikke whimped out at that point and gave us his ship. The crew didn't seem to mind working for us.
We left Provoka for the Land of the Elves traveling by sea, the monsters there weren't as bad as those on land, with a few exceptions. We'd heard that Astos, a dark elf, had put the Prince into a deep sleep. A few people pondered that Matoya could probably make the herbs that would cure him. We'd also heard of a land called Melmond that was having trouble, but we already had a lot to do, they'd have to wait. Do you see what I mean? We have to run all around the world to try find things.
The elves were supposed to hold the Mystic Key for the Light Warriors, but no one could really concentrate on that with their prince asleep. The only clue we had was an old ruined castle in the Northwest. We went there and found a King in the throne room, but no one else. He demanded that we go find Astos in the Marsh Cave and return his crown to him.
I didn't like this king at all, but what could we do? We needed to Prince to wake up, so we made the journey through the cave. It was a hard road with all kinds of monsters we'd never seen before and who were stronger than we'd thought. We ended up having to leave that cave and clear the countryside of monsters to secure enough gold to buy some more potions to cure the aliments that those creatures down there will give you.
I'll try to keep this short, we made it through the cave getting some nice treasure and finding a few more locked doors, but then we fought off some wizards, who gave us a fight and found the Crown. We hurried back out and back to that king. It seemed pretty obvious to all of us that this king wasn't all he seemed and sure enough he turned out to be Astos. He attacked us first and we were forced to kill him. Once he was gone we discovered that he was in possession of the Crystal Eye. So we sailed around returned the Crystal, got some bitter herbs, woke up His Highness who gave us a Mystic Key and then we spent some time gathering all the locked treasure. Then it was off to visit some dwarfs because we couldn't sail out of the Aldi Sea to Melmond.
We found a blacksmith who would later forge Moksi a great sword. We also found a dwarf named Nerrick who was trying to build a canal so he could sail out of the sea as well. We gave him the Explosive Powder that we'd found and he blasted us a way out. We sailed to Melmond.
We found that town in ruins with a Vampire as the cause, so we defeated the Vampire and found a Ruby that would allow us to visit Sandra the Sage, who led us to the first fiend, the Fiend of Earth, Lich. It was a long trek through that dungeon/cave before we found him or her. Whatever it was it was undead so I helped to blast it into nonexistence and we relit the first orb. We were well on our way now. We headed to the Legendary Circle of Sages at Crescent Lake next. They told us the whole story of the fiends and gave us a canoe so that we could sail up rivers. The rivers turned out to be as dangerous as some of the dungeons. The monsters that lurked there were powerful creatures. Our next destination was at the end of a river maze the Volcano where the Fiend of Fire was dwelling.
The Volcano was pretty damn packed with treasure. We had to make several trips to carry it all out. Becca was the most critical of our gold situation and she insisted we not leave anything that was salable behind. Truthfully, she was the one that made sure we always had enough money to attain the supplies and weapons that we needed. What we couldn't find, we had to buy, and some of the best armor we needed to buy. Getting through the Volcano was difficult because of the fire creatures that dwelt there, but the lava filled floors didn't help our progress. We faced Marilith, a serpent woman who wielded several swords and some powerful magic, but we defeated her after a long battle and relit the Orb of Fire.
Our next task, or the task that Moksi set for us, was to head to the Ice Cave, after some people told us about a Floater Stone that would raise an airship out of the desert. That was another long canoe ride and a cold cavern that was more dangerous than all the others. The creatures there could cast some powerful spells. It took us a long time to make it through, that's where my first journal was destroyed. At times I thought we'd never see the light of day again. I almost lost hope there, we all did, but Moksi kept our spirits up, he kept us alive in that darkness. There was treasure to be found, but finding the Floater Stone took the longest. We finally found it and after a fight with a creature that appeared to be a giant undead eye, we made it out of the cave alive.
We had to sail to the desert where we raised an airship from the sands. It's the best mode of travel that we've found, but we can only land it on clear grasslands. Moksi is wary about landing it in the desert, lest it sinks again, and landing in the swamps or the woods is out of the question. We left the ship's crew to do what they wanted. They said if we ever needed them again they would be back in Provoka. We never really saw them again, although we did spy their ship in a safe harbor.
We flew north and found a town surrounded by mountains, where we bought some wonderful equipment. They all thought it was odd that we'd made it that far. I thought it was pretty odd myself. We'd really come a long way. The next thing we did was visit the Island of the Dragons, that's where we met Bahamut, the King of Dragons. He sent us to a Castle of Ordeals to bring back proof of our prowess as warriors. I didn't want to go, but Becca and Moksi insisted. I only went to follow Moksi, but it was a good thing I was there. The Castle had its name for a reason.
For all the creatures that seemed ready to offer instant death that's where we found some of the magical equipment that started Kyo on his quest to discover how it was made. A pair of gauntlets that could summon lightening and a staff that summoned a powerful healing spell. Finding our way through the Castle was tricky because we got teleported all over the place just by touching pillars, but we finally found the second throne with the proof of our courage, a rat's tail. I'm not joking; I wish I were. Well, we brought that back to the King of the Dragons and he was impressed and magically granted us more power. We stayed to train for a while too, and we learned more than I ever could have back at my Temple. Moksi even learned some healing spells. I was really kind of flattered that he learned my brand of Power, but Becca put a practical spin on it, as she always does. We needed all the healing that we could get, what with all the monsters that were prowling the world. She's right, of course, but I'd like to think it was something more.
We decided to go after the Water Fiend next, but that proved to send us another quest all over the world. In Ornac, we found a woman who wanted to reach the sunken water shrine and rescue the mermaids that were trapped there, but needed a way to keep air in her boat. Everyone we spoke to agreed that we needed something called Oxyale, but that could only be obtained in Gaia and a Pirate there had bottled the fairy and sold her to a Caravan in the desert. We also learned that Dr. Unne had the key to teaching us the language of these people whom we'd visited but couldn't understand. Kyo was sure that those people were the key to reaching the Fiend of Air, but first we had to get to Sea Shrine, because Dr. Unne needed some sort of Rock Slab to teach us the Lefish language.
We all went to the Waterfall first, because someone named Kope claimed to have seen something flying near there. Becca and Kyo both thought it was a wild goose chase, and I have to say I agreed, but Moksi insisted that we go. It was a long twisting maze; we found some treasure and a robot that gave us a Cube. He said it was the only way to get to the Floating Castle. It was actually a great discovery, but we discovered that later. We left the Waterfall cave, and headed to the Caravan.
We had to buy the Fairy back for an obscene amount of money, but we did and Moksi set her free. She flew back to Gaia and we followed her. She gave us the Oxayle in gratitude for setting her free. Now we took the sub down to the sunken temple to kill the Fiend of Water and free the mermaids.
There was of course, plenty of treasure that the mermaids guarded. They gave it to us freely as they begged us to free them from Kraken. We did, after another long battle under the water. We relit that orb and headed back to the surface.
Since we'd found a Slab in that water shrine, we took it back to Dr. Unne, who taught us all Lefinish. It was a nice break from fighting, even if Dr. Unne was a pretty hard teacher. It was a long walk to Lefin, but we made and the people seemed to know who we were. They told us about the five sky warriors, who were now trapped as bats. One also gave us the Chime, which would let us enter the Tower called Mirage and reach the Sky Castle.
That Mirage Tower was full of interesting treasure, as was the Sky Castle. That's where we found the Adamant, which I convinced Moksi to bring to the dwarf to make into a sword. I cast the spell and we left the Castle. It was a good thing that we had the sword made because guarding the Fiend of the Air was an ancient robot that nearly sent us all to the Lady of Light. We survived only to face the Dragon Fiend Timant who controlled the air. It was a hard battle, as beaten up as we were. We finally barely managed to defeat him and relight the orb before we stumbled out of the Castle and back into the desert. That's where we are now. I don't know when I'll get to write next, but we're heading back to Crescent Lake to visit the Circle of Sages.