CHAPTER 1: Girl of the Desert
She hunched further to the ground and drew her knees up against her chest to keep the warmth close under her thick cloak. Despite the fact that her clothing was charmed with a spell to keep her dry, it certainly did not keep out the chill. A pitiful fire sputtered before her, and it cast thin shadows in all directions of the damp cave. She and her traveling companion had found a little hole in the side of the mountain. It appeared shallow at first but the wind eventually carved it inward into a smallish enclave. There was a small opening at the top - ideal for a small fire.
She did not dare ask one of her familiars to cast a fire spell on it, as that would make more smoke and burn their fuel faster than necessary. Needless to say, it would also draw the attention of any wild beasts and magical creatures in this godforsaken haunted canyon. The fact that she was a creature tamer and familiar trainer did not have any bearing on the fact that she hated all of the magical creatures in this part of Autumnia. Most of these were spirit creatures, risen from the dead or lingering between the planes of life and death. They had a foul stench which dripped into pools of cursed muck that immediately brought on a fever and depression when in contact with human skin, as if the smell was not bad enough.
She was a girl of the sunshine filled, arid open desert. Moist and damp places like Autumnia were distasteful to her, where moss or mold could grow on your feet if you did not keep moving, and no matter what you did, you could not keep your socks dry.
Esther had no love for this part of her job.
Though the Queen of Al-Mamoon had commissioned her to draft an encyclopedia of magical creatures around the world, she had only tamed and studied ninety-five or so in her young life of seventeen. There were hundreds of different creatures, and each with their own specific evolutions, around the world. They differed with the change of climate, soil minerals, natural resources of air, fire, earth and water. All of this altered their appearance, their level of docility or hostility, and overall strength and elemental magic. In order to study them all, Esther became an assistant, of sorts, to Derwin, a researcher of wild and magical creatures. He too was commissioned by the Queen to complete the list. Esther was at first impressed with his wide expanse of knowledge of the types and evolutions of over two-hundred creatures. However, there was still much he did not know of their behaviors and affinities and thus he voluntarily cast himself out into the world to do more research.
Her impression of him soon soured as Derwin proved to be a most bothersome travel companion. He constantly complained of the weather whenever he was not speaking of magical creatures - and oh, did he talk and talk about all things related to his study - to the point where Esther at times wanted to club him over the head for a little peace. Further, he was a terrible cook, a horrible forager, and generally useless at fighting or defending himself.
Thus, even though Esther herself was the wise daughter of the Great Sage Rashaad and on top of being a graduate of Al-Mamoon's Royal Academy of Weapons & Wizardy, she was mostly the braun of this small operation doing all of the grunt work.
Their only salvation when faced with dire situations was the fact that Esther had mastered all forms of familiar taming, and in fact, brought along three of her most powerful creature companions. So, the task came to Esther to attack and defend while Derwin hid behind her. To her chagrin, this scenario was often repeated throughout their travels.
Most wizards and witches without her talent were out of luck if they wanted to build up their familiar collection by themselves, unless they chanced upon someone who would give them one. At the Academy, she proved top of her class in rearing and training animals and magical creatures. For a fee, she would also trade magical creatures or train them at the request of customers. But to her chagrin, her magic did not extend much further than that. Other than a small flame spell that was decent enough to start a fire, she had very short range offensive or defensive skills of her own, despite her esteemed lineage. Her tool was a hand harp which channeled her magical aura and charmed her creatures into doing her bidding. To make up for her lack of power, her bird familiar, Gogo, had the requisite strength for attack, defense, and casting protection spells. She had two other familiars, the fairy of the forest, Jean who was a light user and healer, as well as her ice demon, an Eldritch Empress, who could cast ice and dark spells in abundance. With these three, and a back sack full of provisions and food, she managed to trudge through marshes, canyons, rivers, seas and grasslands without dying.
Today, however, proved to be most trying. Not only did Esther hate the dark, she had always been rather terrified of ghosts. It made her current predicament quite pitiable. These creatures tended to sneak up on her out of nowhere, making her heart leap into her throat several times and her skin crawl almost constantly. Seventeen skeleton warriors, five will-o-the-wispy things, twelve goo-like creatures and nine cursed maidens later, Esther was worn out both physically and mentally; and without respite from the blasted chill of death that lingered everywhere in Autumnia.
Being around things that were dead, unfortunately reminded her of the unhappy fact that death had clouded her family and shadowed her father's smile for the longest time. Her mother had passed away before her earliest childhood memories and her father, a legendary sage and wizard, raised her single-handedly. Without a mother, she grew up a little rough around the edges and did not really have any talent for needlework, gourmet cooking, or dancing for that matter. These were things that girls and women of refinement in her village would learn to catch the best husbands. She could not draw or sew anything worth her life. Aside from a few Al-Mamoon babana cake recipes she perfected through trial and error, Esther had no real talent for cooking.
She spent most of her young life pouring through her father's collection of books due to the lack of companionship. Though he loved her dearly, her father was not one for conversation. When books were not enough she went through schooling to read more.
Her only talent aside from taming, was in music, which seemed to go hand in hand with her magical abilities. She was clever enough to learn to play any instrument she got her hands on. For this, she spent many hours practicing various wind and stringed instruments alone. Combined with her regular book consumption, it was a rather solitude existence when she was not out and about training her familiars.
It is never a child's fault that a parent was fated to pass away when they are still young. Yet the elders of her village looked upon her like an ill omen since her mother had been the one and only healer in the village. After her mother passed, they unfortunately had a brush with the plague that took many lives in the village and neighboring towns.
Years afterward, the children still teased her for her unlucky fate, and because she was not refined like the other girls. There was always something unruly about her hair and dirt on her clothes from her adventures. Like her father, she was not talkative. The tongues of children were often cruel in her youth. Everyone thought she would forever be a lonely child without any useful female talents who would eventually grow to be an old maid. Even as she grew older, the voices were more hushed, but nonetheless, still there.
Now here she was, still forging her own way alone in an unwelcome, lonely and dark place. Being here, on Tombstone Trail, had only brought the most unpleasant memories back to her. Fighting the creatures here made her heart cold, and memories of her friends she had once traveled with, and the friends she had met in the Academy afterwards, and everyone who cared about her well-being - such as her dear father and Queen Cowlipha - a distant thought. There was something in the air that oppressed any sense of warmth.
She pulled the cloak around her even closer, though it provided no additional comfort. How she longed to take a bath and get out of her dirty traveling clothes. She dreamed of putting on a pair of silk trousers and sitting in the sun. She missed the wafted fragrance of scented oils carried on the desert wind that the veiled women of Al Mamoon purchased in the marketplace.
Who would have thought that someone like me, who went on a quest with my friends to save the world and was heralded as one of the future Great Sages of the world, would end up in a place like this, all by myself again…. she grimaced.
She dozed off to the distant memory of children's voices, singing spiteful rhymes at her.
Notes: I named the fairy I found in the forest after Jean Valjean (since I had recently watched Les Miserables). Gogo, the fairy and the witch became essentially Esther's strongest allies throughout my game.
I chose to stick with the English version of the game (PS3) and the name "Esther" though I think the Japanese name for the character, "Maru," is much more pretty. Esther's name matches the character of the girl I'm trying to convey to the audience in this story.