Chapter 4: For Your Information
x x x
For once I woke up early on my own. Must have been thanks to all the sleep I'd gotten involuntarily the day before. Normally I'm a real night owl and lash out at anyone who tries to wake me up before I'm good and ready.
Ludwig was still up before me though, and I found him cooking breakfast in the kitchen. I spent the entire meal pestering him to help me practice fighting. He gave in with some exasperated grumbling about how if I had so much breath to spare nagging him I was probably recovered enough for some light exercise.
For weapons it seemed Ludwig favored switching between a jian and a dao. Both are types of Chinese swords I've seen used in martial arts movies. Since we'd probably have only a couple of weeks for me to learn, Ludwig decided I'd do best to learn to use a pair of daggers. I was a little disappointed, I've had a little practice with wooden swords in Aikido (and my high school fencing club, but that doesn't count much) and would have liked to continue. But I hadn't taken enough of the weapons work classes to justify more swords training as effective, and daggers were better suited for a beginner.
We were practicing in the small yard behind his house. It seemed his house was right in front of a cliff, right between two arms of rock. This prevented any monsters from attacking the back of the cottage, and in front was a sturdy fence. That didn't look like much to me at first, but then he explained to me that the fence also served the purpose of a physical reminder of where he'd set traps.
Ha, the best part of practice was when Ludwig first disarmed me, and I surprised him with katatetori iikyo omote. I'd describe it as a counter to a grab or overhead strike where you catch hold of the attacker's attacking arm before they have enough momentum and force to hurt you. Then you, well, walk past them, though there's more to it than that. If you know what you're doing, you're opponent will find himself lying face down on the ground and not sure how he got there.
Ludwig was pretty surprised, and I almost wished I didn't have to tell him that I was only a beginner and none of the techniques I knew would help me against monsters. Aikido would be ineffective against anything that didn't have the same body structure as a human. So we decided to leave Aikido counters for a fall back plan and went back to the weapon lessons.
I'd thought the lessons were going well, but late in the afternoon I had another attack where my lungs refused to work properly. Unable to stay on my feet, I knelt on the ground shakily. Although I didn't pass out again my vision was swimming with black dots. I didn't even realize Ludwig had moved me until my head cleared and I found myself sitting in the shade with my back against a tree.
He came back with water drawn from the well on the other side of the yard, and he was frowning at me. "Why didn't you tell me you weren't feeling better?"
"But I was! I wa-was just fine until-until a few minutes before." I had to stop and catch my breath to get the words out, and gulped down the water Ludwig gave me. "I really don't know what's wrong. I haven't had trouble just trying to-to breathe before!"
He grimaced. "In any case, that's enough practice for today. You should-hey, Letha!"
Ugh, good night again...
x x x
This happened several times over the next few days. Just when it seemed I'd recovered my strength again, I'd be hit with another wave of sickness, sometimes fainting and other times just managing to ride it out. After keeping me confined to my room for a few days and seeing no obvious improvement in my condition, Ludwig gave up trying to keep me bed ridden and allowed me to practice whenever I was feeling up to it. I even talked him into letting me practice with his swords every now and then.
When I could I'd help him out with household chores, and when stuck in bed I read from Sophia's books. Most of them seemed to be about research and history, which I just couldn't get into, but I wanted to make sure I had plenty of practice reading the Vesperian writing. ...Tercan writing. Whatever.
Some days while I stayed in bed, Ludwig would leave on his own business. He wouldn't tell me what he was doing, or rather he'd only tell me he was getting supplies or running errands deeper in the forest (I don't know, I guess that was supposed to mean resetting traps, hunting, or getting firewood), but I didn't believe that was all he was doing. I decided not to make a big deal about it though, if he was letting me keep my own secrets, I should leave him his. I was already getting big parts of his life story out of him after all.
Speaking of which, those conversations were more equal sided than that first night. He started working his own questions in, small ones I didn't think twice about answering but which a person could draw a lot of information from. Before I realized it he knew that I was the youngest child, had two older brothers I respected and got along well with, and parents I loved dearly. He even found out about some of my pets and friends, though I'm positive I never used anyone's name.
When I caught on to his game, I scolded him and gave him another hug for revenge. After that I made sure to tell him something about myself every time he answered one of my questions, to keep things fair and to be sure I hadn't accidentally told him something suspicious.
Nearly two weeks passed this way before Nevys showed up again. I was not happy to see him.
"How much time to you intend to waste in this...establishment, Letha?" Already off on the wrong foot for so many reasons. "My associates and I are concerned about the well being of our heirloom."
"Well then you all should have taken better care of it." I put down the book I'd been puzzling through. Ludwig had left on one of his errands and shouldn't be back for awhile, so I wasn't worried he'd come in and find me talking with a (very strange) stranger. "Besides, if I'd started searching right off the bat and had one of those black outs a monster would have eaten me, and then where would you be?"
Now I turned to glare in my seat at the fairy man. "Actually that's something I was hoping to talk to you about. What is up with me getting sick all at once like that? What else did you do to me back then?"
"Hnph. Your health issues have nothing to do with me. Perhaps you caught a local bug. Recover your strength quickly and get on with your duty."
I growled at him, "And that's another thing you need to explain. How the hell do you expect me to know where to find that thing? You won't even tell me what it looks like, and only say this tattoo will let me know! How does that work?"
With a long suffering sigh he reached out and grabbed my left hand again. I angrily jerked back away, but didn't seriously try to break his grip. "Do you really expect we'll give information on the heirloom to outsiders so easily? One of the reasons we marked our searchers was to avoid the leaking of intelligence while ensuring it could be accurately identified."
He held up my hand so I could clearly see the tattoo. "My mark will react when you're in the same area as the heirloom. Though the area may be as large as a town, or as small as a single building. It rather depends, and the factors that effect it may vary." With one finger he pressed at the center of the tattoo. I gasped as it suddenly grew warm. The colors changed from their near black shades to a shifting red and orange glow. "This means you are near. And this means you've found it." My hand grew warmer and the glow became bright white and sky blue. "The mark will react such when you are within arms distance of the heirloom. It will cease to glow once you've claimed it, and I'll come to retrieve you and the heirloom."
So, I'm playing a massive version of the Hot-Cold game. Wonderful.
"What if I don't find your heirloom anywhere? Will I have to keep searching until I die?"
"It is a very real possibility that our heirloom isn't even in this world. We have dispatched human searchers to several worlds, in fact. But it is unlikely the heirloom is somewhere inaccessible to humans, though it my still be difficult to find. If we judge you have searched all possible locations in this world, we'll send you somewhere else to look."
"Wait, what? You're telling me that even if I take years and look everywhere in Terca Lumireis, if I don't find the whatever-it-is you'll just make me start over somewhere else?" I began fingering one of the daggers Ludwig had given me, wishing I didn't need Nevi in order to get home. He noticed my gesture and smirked, clearly guessing what was going through my head.
"Well of course! If you manage to survive that long then clearly you're one of our more successful searchers. We can't let such a useful tool go before finding what we're looking for." He stood up and favored me with one last charming smirk before disintegrating in a flurry of sparkling gold lights.
I groaned and dropped my head in my hands. "Oh God, Flutterbrain is a drama queen. He's worse than Jareth from Labyrinth."
x x x
"Gonna hug ya one last time before I go!" I promptly followed through on my threat, giving the older man a tight bear hug (well, as much as you can call it a bear hug when the other person is over half a foot taller than you). He was still a bit uncomfortable with being hugged, but he mussed my hair in return. I was going to miss him, I was sure, but my weak spells had been getting a lot less frequent and weren't so intense anymore. If I don't leave now, I might never work up the nerve to get started.
"Do you have everything?"
"Yup!" I patted the daggers sheathed on separate belts around my waist, and hefted the bag of supplies Ludwig put together for me onto my shoulder.
"So...this is goodbye." He was trying to hide it, but I'm sure just saying those words made him feel lonely. What I'd learned about him during my stay convinced me that he didn't want to cut himself off from people, he just couldn't bear to leave the home where he'd been so happy with Sophia. If I thought he'd listen to me, I would have tried to convince him to move back into one of the cities. Maybe Halure, I think he could be happy there. But I couldn't find the words to tell him that.
Instead, I ducked my head and said, "If you don't mind, I could come by and visit again. Whenever I'm in the area." I smiled a bit shyly at him. "You were a pretty cool uncle, you know."
That got a smile out of him. "Feel free to drop by anytime. Also, I have one last thing to give you." Without any more explanation, he turned and limped into his room, leaving me fidgeting by the door trying to decide if I should follow. I settled for just looking in and watching him from the door frame.
He was unlocking a drawer in the desk by the window, but I couldn't see what he took out of it at first. When he turned he held it up for me to see and I sucked in a surprised breath.
"Is that-?" It was beautiful hair clip, carved like a pair of spread wings, with a shining red jewel set in the center.
"Yes, a bodhi blastia." He smiled fondly at it. "Actually, I haven't needed to use one for a long time. The monsters here don't pose much danger to me anymore. But this one belonged to Sophia." He held it out to me, "I believe she would have liked you to have it."
"But I-I couldn't possibly!" I could only protest as he placed it in my hand and wrapped my fingers around it. The metal felt cool and I could feel the details of the feathers.
"You're as much her niece as you are mine. She probably would have loved to help you with your journey, and encouraged you to learn everything you could." I couldn't think of any appropriate response to that. "If you still feel guilty for taking it, just make sure you use it and the skills I taught you to help people while you travel." I nodded and smiled. That sounded like such a typical line for an RPG, but it still meant a lot to me.
I reached up and clipped the bodhi blastia to the base of my braid, a few inches above my right ear, making sure it was secure in my thick hair. Not trusting myself to speak, I just nodded again and hoped that actions were speaking louder than the words I couldn't say.
Oh, there was something I could say.
"Thank you, Uncle Ludwig, and Aunt Sophia too."
And then I left, hoping I would live to come see him again.
x x x
The first stop on my list was-Aspio! Did you think that? Logical, logical. But some nagging feeling had me looking over in the direction of the ruins instead. Well I was already so close, and it would suck if I was way early and had to make another trip back here on my own. I wished I had some way of knowing beforehand...
Waitaminute-waitaminute-waitaminute-
"Nevi? You can hear me right? I am pretty damn sure you can hear me! Can you come here and answer a couple of questions for me?" Not knowing what else to do, I had started talking to the tattoo on my hand. I tried not to think of how ridiculous and mentally unstable this probably looked.
So far it wasn't working... "Oi, NEVI! If you want me to do this job properly, then you'd better tell me a few things! You want that heirloom back sooner rather than later, right?"
There were a few snaps like firecrackers and Nevys was back and looking pretty irritated. "Let us get something straight, I'm not a bloody information booth you can summon whenever you feel like it!" If I had to make a guess, I'd interrupted something fairly important. That or he still remembered the Legend of Zelda comment from before.
"Right, I'll try not to abuse you too often." He bristled, but settled for glaring at me with crossed arms and tapping foot. So impatient to get on with things. "Right, so there's only a couple of questions I wanted to ask. You already knew I was familiar with this world, so that means you know about the game Tales of Vesperia, right?"
"Yes, more or less...though to a lesser extent than you humans who create and 'play' these 'games'." I swear that must have been the first time he ever had to use those words, or at least the first time in this context. "This world is perfectly real if that's what you're going to-" he broke off this tirade when I shook my head. "Then your point is?"
"Right, I want to know if I'm actually in the time period covered in the video game's storyline, and if so whether the main characters have started forming their group yet. If they have, where are they right now?"
"Hnph." Hate that sound. Hate it with a passion~ But I kept my thoughts to myself and tried to wait patiently while Nevi considered whether he was going to answer or not. "Actually, I believe you were brought here a short time before events began, although your period of convalescence has delayed you to a point not long after the young man and princess left the castle." Well whaddaya know, it's like a fanfiction dream! "Hmm, in fact, I'd say if your plan is to join with them it would be advisable to intercept them in those ruins over that way." He gestured towards the Shaikos Ruins. Huh, intuition for the win! "Now if that is all?"
"Er, yeah, you can go back to whatever you were doing."
"So glad to have your permission." And he was gone in another dervish of golden lights that I think was larger than last time. I wonder if he does that to annoy me?
I felt incredibly reassured now that I knew for sure that I had the game events to look forward to. Although it would be bad to assume that everything would be just like the game.
The ruins were really nearby, so I ran into only one group of monsters on the way. A small swarm of monster wasps, I don't know what they're called, which I fortunately heard coming.
"Agh, don't choke, don't think, just move!" Even back in Aikido I knew one of my biggest faults was I'd try to think too much about what I was supposed to do. I couldn't afford that anymore since there were no chances to just do something over.
I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and moved away, my feel sliding through some basic Aikido foot work, and I slashed reflexively at the wasp monster that was now in front of me. My dagger didn't cut as deeply as I'd like, but as the wasp fell to the ground I followed it down and stabbed it with my other dagger to finish it off.
Another wasp tried to dive at me and I jumped back. To my surprise I flew back farther than I'd anticipated, though not by much, and I took the opportunity to rush forward and slash again at the remaining wasps that had yet to catch up with my sudden dodge.
The fight was over almost as soon as it started, and I could only stand in place while shaking with the realization that I'd had my first fight and lived. "Uh," I grunted and dropped down to sit on the grass. Idly I wiped the daggers off with a rag from my bag before returning them to my belts. "That wasn't so bad."
From where I was sitting I was pretty close to the Shaikos Ruins, and while waiting for my nerves to calm down again I studied them. I don't know much about architecture, but I thought the ruins were impressive from an aesthetic point of view. They would be an interesting subject for a painting, if only I had the materials and the time.
While I mused over the probability of having a chance to come back with canvas, or if I could even find acrylic paints in a world that doesn't refine oil or use plastics, who should emerge from the ruins but Flynn Scifo and his company of knights.
"Oh wow, this feels weird." Since I was still seated on the ground, and not right in front of the ruins, none of them saw me gawking at the blond knight, or his red headed (*cough* fangirl *cough*) lieutenant, or the little mage who was part of the group almost as an after thought. For a moment I considered seeing if I could join Flynn, but no. Flynn doesn't have as much freedom, he has to follow orders and the Empire's laws. Yuri and his friends aren't nearly as limited in their movements, and see more of the world than Flynn. Stick with your first plan, Letha.
I crouched down in the grass, hoping they wouldn't notice me. Flynn was such a nice guy, if he met a girl traveling alone he'd probably insist on escorting me to the nearest city or something. I needed to be in those ruins, not putting up with knightly babysitters.
Even once they'd left I waited in place for awhile, to be sure there were no stragglers or anything. When my patience had finally worn thin enough, I brushed off my pants and walked into the ruins. It took a bit of looking around, but I eventually found the statue of a winged woman holding an urn that I vaguely remembered. I climbed up onto the pedestal, and settled in behind her skirt to wait for company.
x x x
The hours dragged by, and I was tempted to use my mp3 player to kill time, but decided against it to conserve the batteries. At some point it had occurred to me that it would really suck if Yuri and the others came to the ruins tomorrow or something, and I got stuck out here all night. I just decided to trust that Nevi would have told me to meet them in Aspio if that was the case. Totally ignoring the possibility that he'd set me up for a cold night as revenge for calling him.
When they did show up, I was trying to distract myself with breathing exercises, and at first I'd thought I'd fallen asleep and dreamed that they'd finally come.
"I see. So first you get us alone in the dark, then you zap us, huh?" Oh, hooray for Yuri's sarcastic humor! I never loved it as much as I did now!
"...Hmm, 'ZAP.' I like the way that sounds..." Rita sounds serious...she probably is.
"H-hey, what was that supposed to mean? Why are you smiling like that?" Captain Karol is accounted for...
"Let's try to get along now, okay?" And there's our beloved princess, Estelle. Er, I should probably make sure I call her Estellise until she introduces herself otherwise. Actually, I shouldn't call any of them by name at first in case I accidentally jump the gun.
I listened as their footsteps came closer to my hiding place, wondering if it would give a bad first impression for them to discover me there. Ah well, too late to worry about that.
"Looks like no one's here... No Imperial Knights, thieves, or anyone else!"
"Maybe they're further in?"
"Or maybe they just left." I piped up. Oh, my stomach felt funny, all fluttery with nerves.
"Aah! Who's there?" I couldn't help but smile at how Karol jumped. Did he think I was a ghost or something since he couldn't see me?
"Just me, one harmless girl." I stood up so that they could see me, holding out my empty hands. Estelle and Karol both seemed too surprised by my appearance to do anything, Repede was growling at me, and Yuri looked calm, but since his reaction was the one I worried about most I noted him tense slightly. Rita would be a lot more obvious if she was planning to blast me.
It was Rita who made the first move after all, "What are you doing here? Are you one of those thieves?" Oh crap, she was powering up a fireball.
"Woah! I'm not a thief, calm down!"
"Then what are you doing here?" Yuri, the voice of reason! Ugh, I hadn't thought of a reason to tell them.
"Uh, I'm just a traveler, you see? I wanted to see what the Shaikos Ruins were like, that's all!"
"Is that so. Looks to me like you were waiting for someone." He's perceptive too. But I couldn't very well say that I'd been waiting for them to show up! Think fast...
"Actually, I had an aunt who was really interested in these ruins. She used to come study them. I was just thinking about her, trying to figure out what it must have felt like..." My hand raised up to finger the blastia hair clip. Aunt Sophia, huh...I actually do wonder why you were interested in the ruins and buried blastia. Wish I'd asked Ludwig.
"I see!" Oh, that was Estelle. I didn't expect her to chime in yet. "You're waiting to meet your aunt! Is she coming soon?"
"No, she died when I was little."
"Oh! I'm sorry..." Poor Estelle looked so concerned that she might have, I dunno, crushed my heart or something. I'd probably either really like her as if she were a younger sister, or get really annoyed with her... If I managed to join them.
"Nah, don't worry about it. I kinda guess I was waiting for her, in some weird spiritual way, though I didn't expect anyone to actually come." I looked around at them. "Actually, I wasn't the first one here. I saw a group of people leaving not long before I got here."
"Really? Were they knights?" The "ace" of the Hunting Blades got over his fear that I might be a ghost...
"Um, I'm not really sure," I lie, yes I do, "I wasn't close enough to see." Estelle visibly wilted a bit at that. I swear, that dress of hers reminds me of an overturned flower. "Though there might still be more people further in, I haven't looked around very hard for the entrance yet." And now she brightened up again.
"How far are we talking here?" I just shrugged at Yuri. Can't tell him I'm standing on the way in.
"How did you know that the ruins go further?" The smaller girl was glaring up at me, that made me nervous. "Does that mean the information about the underground has gotten out?"
"Hmm? I dunno, but I heard that my aunt was positive that there was a way in. She never found it on her own, though."
"The underground?" Estelle questioned us.
"Recently, an entrance to an underground area was uncovered here. A handful of mages are supposed to be the only people who know about it..."
"But it's okay for us to know this?" Yuri leaned back against a wall. Good, he's concentrating on Rita again so I guess he doesn't see me as a threat.
"I don't have much choice if I'm to clear my name, do I?"
Rita walked away as Yuri mumbled to himself, "Clear your name, huh..."
Mmm, why does that give me a bad premonition?
I watched as Rita and Karol studied the ground and noticed scratch marks where the statue had been moved recently. When the boy started pushing against it I jumped down to the ground as Yuri moved up to help. Could the two of them really move that huge statue on their own? Hell, Yuri's only using one hand!
Hell, they really did move it! And they even did it without falling down the stairs hidden underneath! The game cuts away so you don't see how they managed that, and the logistics of it had bothered me before.
As Karol huffed and gasped to catch his breath, and Yuri more quietly did the same, Rita boldly stepped up to the hole stating, "Okay, here we go."
"Wait!"
They all turned to look at me. Ohh, I hate being the center of attention, I felt awkward. "Um, mind if I come with you guys?"
"Why should we let you? You'll probably just get in the way." Ouch, Rita.
"Is it because of your aunt?" Oh, thank you princess for the opening! I nodded to them.
"Well, I don't really mind at all."
"Oh so you'll trust a stranger you just met more than me." Rita huffed at the swordsman angrily.
"Never said I trusted her. It would be safer to keep her nearby so we can keep an eye on her in case she's working with the thieves."
"D-do you really think she's a thief, Yuri?" Karol stared at me with shock.
"Meh, sure, I'm a thief. I go around stealing people's time with random conversation." I winked at Karol. "Be careful or I might steal a whole hour from you before you even realize it."
That got me some weird looks, but Yuri also chuckled a bit. "Well now that that's settled, let's go."
x x x
Oh my God! Finally meeting the characters! I thought it went well?
Um, the Aikido move? Well, there's just too much going on in one technique for it to be summed up easily, and it wasn't a big enough scene to justify further description. Right now I'm just trying to get it out there that Letha knows a few hand to hand techniques so they won't come out of the blue later on. And an important note about Aikido: it's purely for self-defense. (Or at least it is in the club and dojo I go to.) Everything has to be instigated by an attacker, and it's designed to defend yourself or neutralize an attacker without hurting anyone. (Apparently a sore muscle or wrist doesn't count as "hurting.")
Not to say Letha is unaggressive...
