Chapter 7: The Wayward Paladin
I swear, I'll uncover the truth behind those visions...!
"Oh, Ryuu!"
Ryuu had made it halfway down the stairs that led down to the city entrance before he was stopped by a pair of familiar faces-one with swirly pink hair, another with flowing violet.
"Lize! Joen!"
A smile embraced Ryuu's face as he spotted the farmer couple approaching him, entering into the city. Slung across each of their backs were large sacks filled to the brim with fruits and veggies.
"What's with these?" Ryuu asked as he poked the bags with curiosity.
"Careful with those Ryuu," Joen said with a soft voice yet was firm in his warning. "We've collected all the ripened crops from our farm and we're bringing them to the city to distribute amongst the wounded soldiers from the gnolls' attack." Ryuu grinned-looked like their farm had been spared from the destruction.
"We even heard that you saved the lives of some Second Generation drakkin, Ryuu," Lize spoke up. "That was very courageous and brave and you."
"L-like I said before, it was nothing, really!" Ryuu placed his hands behind his head and laughed, feeling embarrassed by the additional praise. "I only did what was natural!"
"Eh, Ryuu," Joen piped up and pointed at the knapsack secured to the wizard's back. "Are you heading back out into the Hollow to help with the reconstruction?"
"Oh! Well, uh, no...how should I say this...it's kind of complicated, really..." Ryuu ran a hand through his spiked white hair and sighed.
"Is it a secret?" Lize asked, tilting her head.
"No, it's not that! Erm, I guess the most I can tell you is that the Circle and the Scions sent me on a mission outside of the city."
"Veeshan bless you! To be trusted with a mission granted to you by both our leaders and our parents must mean they have extraordinary faith in your abilities Ryuu!" Joen yelled as he clapped his hands together in excitement.
"Yeah, but...I might be awhile for quite some time..." Ryuu bowed his head. Nobody had even an inkling as to how long he'd be away on his quest, and he was going to miss this place and his friends and family dearly.
"Cheer up Ryuu," Lize said as she stepped towards the melancholy wizard and pecked his cheek, causing him to blush up quite a bit. "After what you did for the children of our city, how could we ever doubt you?"
Joen grinned. "We wish you the best of luck on your quest Ryuu. Try not to forget about all of us, okay?"
"What are you saying! How could I ever forget about you all!?"
"Hahaha, calm down Ryuu, I was merely jesting! Come Lize, these crops won't get to the injured themselves, we should hurry along," Joen chuckled, turning his attention towards his wife, who concurred.
"Farewell Ryuu! Come home safely!" And with that, the farmers and the wizard parted ways.
"It was a stroke of luck that our farm was spared," Joen said to his wife.
"I know, who would've thought those mangy gnolls would have the gall to attack us like that? What next? The undead rise up and take over our farms?"
Ryuu did his best to calm himself as he finally passed the city entrance, carved mightily into the cliff's side. He shot a glance to the north, towards the farms and settlements, and frowned as there still lingered smoke from the smoldering ruins of the buildings destroyed.
How could the Mucktails do this to us? What did we ever do to them besides wish for peace...?
Ryuu forcefully wrenched his gaze far off to the east, where the grassy valley that bled out into the ever-dangerous Blightfire Moors stood, with twin pillars of stone erected out of the ground on either side of the valley, marking the only way in and out of the Hollow.
It took roughly a half hour for Ryuu to traverse across the width of the Hollow and stand before the enormous pillars that seemed to stand for eternal watch over the valley. He solemnly turned back and stared at the city where he had literally spent his entire life at-even if he was a drakkin and hadn't been alive for more than two years (they mature fast, after all).
"Listen up everyone!" Ryuu yelled at the far-off city as he pumped a fist into the air. "I'm going to be away for Veeshan-knows how long! So don't do anything stupid while I'm away either!"
He fastened his bag and began to walk down into the narrow valley. The city was now far behind him-there was no reason to turn back even to face it anymore. He was faced towards his future and his quest.
And don't forget about me either...
Webbed feet fumbled across marshy hills and stony monoliths as the mounted pursuers approached ever closer.
"Mithaniel Marr save me! I can't catch a break in this rugged and forsaken land!"
The armed amphibian hopped rather ungracefully until his webbed foot was caught on a random rock, causing him to tumble down a hill. He quickly picked himself up, his armor clinking as he moved haphazardly across the hilly terrain, the growls of his pursuers louder than ever before.
"Gnolls! Why did it have to be gnolls!?" He cursed aloud at his misfortune. "Why couldn't it be troll!?"
An arrow suddenly embedded itself into the ground beside the wayward man, who yelled in surprise and panted as he pumped more and more of his energy and stamina into his already strained legs. "Must...find...water!" He panted.
The amphibian made to leap over a fallen log but an airborne strand of rope twirled through the air, catching the figure off guard and tripping up his legs, causing him to plummet to the ground with a thud. He made to rip the cloth off his ankles, but it was too late: the gnoll riders had finally caught up with their prize. The head of the pack licked his jowls and howled in victory, his rusty blade thrust against his foe's neck as his comrades went to work on subduing and tying up their new prisoner.
This day couldn't possibly get any worse...!
Ryuu grimaced as he began to walk out of the narrow valley; the ground beneath his feet suddenly turned a dark pale shade of green and became squishier and squishier with each step he took. He was definitely in the Moors now.
"This mucky peat's already annoying; I better find the path to the outpost quickly..." Ryuu muttered as he endured the peaty ground-for now. The drakkin had established a small outpost in the western expanses of the moorlands; it was fledging in both size and stature, but it was necessary to maintain if the drakkin were to explore the only immediate landscape outside of the Hollow, which was already inhabited and cultivated.
Which is precisely why alarms began to go off in Ryuu's mind when he spotted stygian pillars of smoke pluming up into the sky just beyond the hills before him.
"Don't tell me...!"
Ryuu raced over the hills and gasped as he saw a good sizable chunk of the outpost smoldered into ruin-this had 'Mucktail' written all over it.
"Halt! Who goes there!?" A very bewildered and coal-covered guard rushed towards Ryuu, spear in hand to skewer the possible intruder.
"Woah!" Ryuu raised his hands in defense. "I'm one of you guys!"
"Ryuu?" The wizard perked his ears and turned, spotting an elegant white-robed drakkin approaching him, her silver hair brushed back in a careful nature. "Why are you here?"
"Kulvinia!" Ryuu remembered her from Crescent Reach-she was also a high-ranking and well respected wizard. "I didn't know you were sent here with the last caravan!"
"You do not seem to be with any caravan..." She frowned.
"I assume this was the work of the Mucktails, correct?" Ryuu replied solemnly.
Kulvinia blinked in surprise. "Well, yes. How did you know?"
"Because the gnolls already attempted to attack the city," Ryuu replied, causing the surrounding guards to erupt in a chorus of angry swearing of 'loathsome furballs' and 'despicable mutts'.
"That explains why the morning messenger we usually receive never arrived here today..." Kulvinia mused. "We sent out a foreigner to Crescent Reach to request aid quite some time ago, but I'm afraid he might've gotten lost, or worse, captured or even killed by the Mucktails..."
"Hm? What do you mean 'foreigner'?" Ryuu asked.
"He was a very peculiar fellow," Kulvinia explained. "He didn't look anything like us, yet he was polite and well-mannered. He helped us fend off the gnoll raid, and volunteered to go to the city alone for us...but he could already be dead..."
"Well, that just wouldn't do, would it?" The wizard smirked.
"What do you mean?"
"I'll go see if your messenger is still alive. I know enough of the gnolls to know that they reside along the southern cliffs, right? So, I'll go there and do some investigating to see if your messenger is still alive. If he is, I'll rescue him, but if he isn't, I'll return to the city myself to get aid for you all," Ryuu explained.
"No, Ryuu, you can't!" Kulvinia yelled. "It's much too dangerous!"
Before Ryuu could retort (he didn't like it when people lacked faith in him) one of the outpost guards let out a shout of surprise as a wall of towering figures suddenly surrounded the outpost's perimeter.
"Shohohoho!" A deep, oaky voice rang through the encampment. "The hatchling's got spunk! Such a fire in his heart will take him far in life, far in life indeed!"
"It's Roanoak!"
Ryuu widened his eyes in surprise. Before his very eyes stood a regiment of walking trees, the fabled treants of Blightfire! And towering above the already massive saplings stood their parent, Roanoak, headstrong ally of Crescent Reach and watcher over the western hills of the moors. His hollow yet cheerful-looking eyes landed on Ryuu and his companion and he strode towards them slowly, his wooden body trembling the ground with each step he took.
"Roanoak! Is it safe for you to wander so far out from your grove?" Kulvinia asked with a tint of worry in her voice.
"Shohoho! My roots have not grown so thick and deep as to prevent from traversing my homeland young drakkin!" The mighty treant's voice boomed down on them. " Now who's this hatchling with a fire unlike any I've seen before?"
"I'm Ryuu," replied said wizard as he picked his nose, with Kulvinia gawking over his behavior. S-so casual...!
"Well then Ryuu, have at it! Fear not, for my children shall defend your outpost from anymore attacks until you have it sufficiently rebuilt."
"Alright! Time to go rescue that messenger!" And with that, the wizard zoomed off towards the south, where the Mucktails were situated.
"Wait, Ryuu!" Kulvinia cried out in protest. "if you go down there and challenge them all to a fight, you'll get killed!"
Ryuu turned and smirked. "I never said I was gonna fight them!"
Ryuu laid sprawled across the ground, which had transformed from being extremely marshy and peaty to dry and dusty-and the landscape's sudden rugged change before Ryuu was testament to that. The hills of the moors flattened into dust before rising back up into the cliffs where the Mucktails made their home.
The 'clink-clank' of pickaxes and the screeching of metal against metal roared through the cliffs-the abundance of sound did well in deterring the local wildlife from traversing too close.
Hmm, I guess if my plan's going to work, I should just do it the old-fashioned way, Ryuu pondered as he mentally finished scanning over his plan to rescue the foreign messenger.
Ryuu grinned, picked up a stone, and chucked it with all he had at the nearest gnoll that was patrolling the area. The gnoll yelped as the rock hit him square on the back of the head, and turned towards the source, snarling as he caught sight of Ryuu, who had stood up and waved nonchalantly at the guard.
The gnoll sentry rolled his head backwards and let loose a echoing howl, summoning a small cabal of other guards-riding atop large wolf mounts.
Ryuu quickly turned tail and ran towards the nearest hills as the mounted gnolls howled in anticipation of the hunt, their hands readying their bows and slingshots for another hill romp.
Needless to say, Ryuu didn't get far, and he ended up tripped to the ground by a rope slingshot and quickly subdued by his pursuers-now-captors.
Luckily Ryuu wasn't blindfolded, only tied up and gagged, as he was marched across the dusty plains and through the gnoll encampments dug thoroughly into the sides of the cliffs. Broken and twisted mining supplies and metal junk were scattered all along the ground, and the gnolls snarled and jeered at him en masse as he was forced closer towards a mine entrance. A abnormally large guard dog bared his fangs and growled at Ryuu before being shooed away by one of his captors. The group halted suddenly before the mine entrance; a large metal cart suddenly shot out of the cave, jumping the rusted tracks laid on the ground and crashed to the ground, spilling forth all of its earthen contents. The gnolls seemed not to mind, and soon all attention was turned from Ryuu as the gnolls piled into the dirt, digging through it with an unnatural furor.
Wonder what they're looking for, Ryuu thought before being shoved down the mine shaft by one of his more unruly captors.
Ryuu's vision was severely hampered by the dimly lit lanterns hung on the mine's seemingly endless walls, and the cramped size was starting to get to him-this mine was just too claustrophobic for his own liking. Sure, Crescent Reach could technically be considered to be 'underground', but it wasn't nearly as cramped as this mine was.
"Keep moving!" Another shove.
"What 'ave you got thare?" A sloppy voice rang out from the mine. "A dakkin? 'Aught prisoner, ya say? Excellent!"
Ryuu groaned as he was suddenly punched in the gut and tossed like rotten leftovers onto the floor of the mine. "You'll 'etch us a pretty penny in ransom, you stinkin' dakkin!" And with that, the gnolls howled in laughter and closed an iron gate before Ryuu could even pick himself up. He rubbed his eyes and calmed down to assess the situation as his eyes slowly began to become more and more adjusted to the darkness of the mine.
"So..." A voice croaked out from the darkness behind him. "You have been apprehended by the gnolls as well."
Ryuu twirled around, his hands ready to let off a spell; he squinted his eyes and took in the shape of a diminutive figure sitting cross-legged in the darkness. "Who...who are you?"
The figure stood up, stretched out his limbs, and cautiously made his way to Ryuu, where he could see him much better in the cavern's dim light, and what he saw shocked Ryuu. He's...he's a giant frog!
"Greetings, commoner," the frog humanoid bowed slightly towards Ryuu. "I am Koharu, paladin of Marr, and protector of the Innothule, at your service."
