Rated: PG-13
Language: English
Categories: Humour/Adventure
Title: RoChronicles
Summary: Everything fell apart when a dark cloud descended over Rune-Midgard. Will Shujiri, Zira & co be able to stop the evil Satan Morroc and pick up the pieces or are they doomed to fail? More importantly, can they remember who they were along the way? m/m, m/f
Author's Note: FIRSTLY: It should be noted that, although Prontera has the church where you become a Priest, we figured that Knights should get that one and Priests could have Rachel. It makes sense; just go with it. xD There isn't any talking in this chapter and the descriptions are practically nil, but I needed to get in the driving forces behind our characters focused before I could do anything with the rest of the story. I want to point out quickly that, to me, cyan is a kind of blue. Some people argue that it's more green, but I disagree. Ehn, whatever floats your boat. However, what sucks about this chapter in particular is that I actually -had- been four-fifths of the way through in the quest to make Ganvantein when Void did the server wipe. Also, there is a mention of a Garm Baby doing bad things, which relates back to one of the preset montalk commands Shujiri put in for it. Last but not least, a quick note about the scythe: I refuse to take out the scythe bit regardless that no other servers have it. I miss my f'ckin' scythe. D8

RoChronicles

Chapter Three: Missionary Man
Zira made for quite an unusual sight to begin with for the little town of Izlude, what with being a High Priest and all. Add onto that the fact that he was not only decked out in a Priest's garb, but carrying a large scythe in one hand, a large, triangular, purple and gold Valkyrie Shield on his back, and a large bag of scrolls and potions hanging from one shoulder, and he just looked down right out of place in the little island town.

Indeed, he got dozens of funny looks from people as he passed by. The people here probably weren't used to seeing a Priest in their midst very often, much less one that looked to be armed for a nuclear winter.

Ah, but it couldn't be helped; one must be stocked up when traveling, and he had quite a trip ahead of him.

Though the long-haired blonde didn't know exactly where his journey was going to lead him in the end, it didn't really matter.

He was going from town to town to be of service to the village residents and the warriors that were fighting to make their world safe for everyone. He, himself, had been saved more than a few times from wolves and orcs when he was just a High Acolyte by a passing Assassin Cross or Taekwan Master, and was more than grateful for their help. Their jobs, and the jobs of all the other classes, were the dangerous ones; his was relatively easy by comparison as far as he was concerned. For the most part, all he had to do was wait on the back lines and keep them alive, which was easier than their task of actually going face to face with the creatures of darkness they fought. That was the reason he was even making these trips at all.

Alright, so that was a half truth. And he'd admit somewhat guiltily that, when necessary, he was getting rather good at using them.

If you could call his bluff, the blonde Priest would admit that his primary reason for setting out on this seemingly saintly mission was to sort out a few of the unusual dreams that had been visiting him ever since he had achieved his status of High Priest a month previous.

Some seemed to be so vague they could only be figments of his sleeping mind's imagination. Those encompassed a wide variety of things, ranging from a Garm Baby trying to do very unsavory things to his leg (much to the amusement of the blurry figure that must have owned it,) to breezing across the fields of Geffen with the help of his beautiful blue-tinted white wings in search of..what? He never found out, but he could vaguely remember that it had something to do with the shards he remembered seeing himself place in a small bag at his hip for safe keeping. Ganvantein Shards, they had been called?

Then there were the dreams that were so real - nightmares, usually - where he could practically feel the blood of his loved ones staining his hands and hear the screams of innocent lives cut short before their time as he stood helpless to console them or lessen their pain. They were so terrifying, so realistic, that no matter how quickly he recognized his surroundings after waking himself up with his own screams, he always found himself breaking down into tears that would usually stay with him through the rest of the then-sleepless night.

A few times, they had occurred while he was still in the last leg of his time at the church in Rachel, and regardless of the kind murmured whisperings of reassurance and the presence of his peers who would come check on him to see what the commotion was over, nothing seemed to calm his heartbeat or quell the residual fear that quaked through his veins. Worst of all would be the ensuing feeling of guilt, which was so overwhelming at times that it threatened to drown out every moment of happiness and laughter he had ever experienced until it consumed him to the core. It was a feeling of failure, but for what?

Although questionable and amusing at times, and horrifying and sickening at others, those dreams had to mean something of some importance; they all had some kind of connective thread, even if they didn't seem to play out in any particular order. He could recognize himself in some of them, although his hair was styled differently, and he felt some inexplicable pull toward the others that made appearances in them.

Even the Bishop, himself, had taken him aside at one point and had spoken with him about them, and after a couple of hours of consideration and careful listening, they had determined that they were messages being sent to him. Neither of them knew why, but it had become clear that they shouldn't be ignored. Were they omens of the future, and they were being used to warn of impending tragedy? Or were they memories from before Zira's time in Rachel, Prontera, and the abbey - perhaps even from another lifetime, just whispers and ghosts of a past that refused to die quietly?

Either way, once his training was complete, the kind older man finally decided to send Zira on his way under the condition that he try to look further into the possible meanings of his dreams as he went along.

Curing a Blind or Silenced man here and there, tapping into his spiritual connections to the gods and Resurrecting another somewhere else, and basically following the principles and morals taught to his class, Zira was still making little progress in figuring out what those ghastly visions meant. The only thing he had to go by was from his last nightmare.

He had been on his way to collect the items required for another of the shards necessary to create what someone in it had told him was called Ganvantein for one of his traveling companions (their form was always just as blurred as everyone else's, until he could distinguish no particular features of the man other than a High Wizard's garb) when the sky grew overcast and a terrible, booming cackle filled his ears. Having awoken soon after this, he wasn't sure who his dream self had been going to see, much less if he'd ever made it there.

The fair-skinned, cyan-eyed man had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that what he'd seen before he woke up left little room for whatever bleak hope there might have otherwise been. Being faced by Satan Morroc, who was accompanied by a large number of other horrifically powerful monsters, would probably be the last thing anyone saw.

Thus, the thin High Priest was on his way to Geffen, hoping to find some clue as to where in the dungeons, town, or fields he needed to look in order to find the man he had likely been searching for in his dream. He didn't hold any specific expectations for what he would find there, but it was at least a place to start, and if you didn't start somewhere and eliminate the possibilities, you would never get anywhere.
To Be Continued...