'Ashleyian Piren'
I ran down the magic forcefields that served as a ramp, not looking back. I didn't hear anyone behind me, but I didn't care. I saw a gate stone guarded by a pair of golems, so I charged them and hacked one down and dodged the spells of the other, before swiftly taking it down. I turned back to the gate stone after collecting the loot bags and turned it off. It fizzed off and the sigil above it faded.
I turned and wordlessly returned to the first waystone, before seeing a left behind Athena stomp down one of the other passages. A part of the barricade warped and vanished like the sigil, and it made her turn around. She turned back to the departing group and got their attention, before forcefully dragging them back up the ramp.
"What is it?" Volker asked, and I pointed to the place where the barrier once was.
"Do you want to go up there?" Aerossi asked, and I nodded. She looked at Volker, and he gestured to lead the way. I gave him a smile and when he was in arms reach I grabbed and hanged off his arm.
The group walked up the new ramp and we found another waystone, and when everyone was ready, I touched and it moved the group elsewhere in the Great Crystal. Volker looked around and then sighed, before leading the party on. I looked at him grow unsteady, like he was trying to remember something that just barely had stayed there.
I looked up at him, and he noticed and looked down at me, before Aerossi reached for her spear. I looked up reaching for my weapon, noting the two shadow horse fiends heading our way. Volker took out his Deathbringer and ran up to meet them, while I prepared a regeneration spell. He swung, and the sword bit down into one of the horse's fettered flesh, and it gave out a whine. The second rammed him with the blade on its head, and cut his chest. I threw a healing spell, and the wound healed.
Athena shot a thunder spell at the first horse and it started to buckle, when Aerossi spiked it with her spear, and it fell to the ground. The second horse, noticing the loss of its partner, brayed angrily and proceeded to hack at Volker. He parried two of the hits and took another, before its horn glowed and thrashed its head, making a spinning disc to emit from it and shred at Volker's chest. I threw a healing spell and he brushed off the wound, and struck out, hacking into the horse's breast. He ducked out of the horn's way and let Aerossi pierce the animal's chest, and she let go as it stuck in the rotten flesh.
Athena took this moment to send an electric charge into both weapons, electrocuting the beast. It screeched loudly, but poofed into smoke soon enough. Volker picked up and tossed the spear towards Aerossi, who caught it with ease, and reclaimed his Deathbringer. I threw another healing spell towards Volker, and took his arm once more. He walked on, and we came to a split in the path. He took the path straight ahead, and we found another pair of horses.
They didn't notice us until we stepped onto the platform, and I saw a large treasure crystal hovering in the midst of it. The boundary forcefield extended to block us from retreating, and the two horses came at us, but when they passed the crystal, they froze and turned into a gaseous vapor before engulfing the crystal chest. Several more vaporous beasts entered through the sky and mixed themselves in with the cloud of shadow beasts. The culminative orb of the shadow grew and soon it started to blot out the chest.
Not one for patience, Volker ran for the chest, Deathbringer in hand. Athena tossed a lightning bolt that parted a bit of the dark mass. The part fell onto the platform and turned into a small horse, which charged at Volker. Aerossi sped up to him and speared the horse, blocking it from reaching Volker. I ran behind him in case he needed to heal, and the dark mesh started to choke the chest.
The small horse relented and butted Aerossi out of the way, and nearly trampled me trying to get past. "Volker!" I called out reflexively, but he didn't stop. Instead, he ran faster, before the mass began solidifying.
"No!" he cursed, and tried to swing out, but the mass opened its eyes and glared at him, before a fist materialized and smashed into him. He flew back over the small ghost horse and rolled to my feet, nearly tripping me. I quickly stopped and used a healing spell, while Aerossi tried to fight the ghost horse that was trying to turn around.
"Are you okay?" I asked, worry obvious in my voice.
"Not really, but I'll live," he said, getting up. I looked back to see the ghost horse that was chasing him poof into smoke as Aerossi delivered the final blow, and Athena throwing another lightning bolt at the beast that was forming.
It was a large, humanoid version of the horses it was made out of, and it formed armor out of the remaining swirling darkness. The chest had all but disappeared within it, and all of the contents. The beast reached into its chest and, with a grunt, pulled out a great sword. The horseman shrunk as it did so, and Volker brushed off his injuries and started to run towards the beast. When the sword was out, Volker rushed it with Deathbringer, with Aerossi right behind him. Athena was throwing her lightning spells with diminishing effect, causing her to try and syphon some magic energy off the horseman.
I tossed the shield past Volker, who jumped to the side to dodge, before taking a misstep and tripped. "Hey!" he shouted, getting up, but his leg seized and stopped moving him forward, but the momentum of his body made him fall to the floor again. The shield soared through the air and the horseman caught it, then added its dark energy to it, morphing the shield into a much larger and solid shield. It then stabbed the ground with the sword, and the runes carved on it glowed a golden color for a moment, before shrieking and becoming a deathly white.
The horseman roared, and Athena sent another lightning bolt at it, but the beast caught it and threw it back at her. She dodged it and then ran, as the horseman had decided to rush her. Volker tried to get up, but even though I cast a healing spell at him, he didn't look any better. Aerossi ducked in and out, spearing the horseman while he chased Athena, but when the horseman turned around to see what was hitting it, Aerossi zoomed upwards to avoid detection.
Volker limped over to the horseman with a pained expression on his face, so I went to him and tried to help him out, and he took me under his arm. "You doing alright?" he asked, and I nodded.
"Yeah, I'm just not happy that the horseman has the shield instead of you," I told him, and he chuckled.
"Sorry about that," he said.
"No, don't worry about it. I threw it towards you without warning, so I should be taking the blame," I told him, both of us smiling. Then I recalled something similar to this, something like when I met Saikun. "Do you know what my name is?"
"Umm, yeah, isn't it Ash Piren or something?" he asked, like an obvious answer.
"No, she was my past life, from what Athena tells me. I'm…" I trailed, somehow not able to remember it. "It's not that, but I can't seem to remember what it actually is."
"Right, well that's not overly important right now," he said, bringing my attention back to the horseman. "What shall we call it?" he asked.
"We aren't keeping it as a pet," I remarked, and he shot a demeaning glance at me. I looked at him back the same way, until I realized that wasn't what he meant, and muttered an apology. "What were you thinking about?"
"This guy isn't in the game, so I was thinking we could make up a name for him. Umbral Knight, Horseman of the Crystal, or something like that," he joked.
"Umbral Knight?"
"Light-serving Darkness'," he explained. I nodded, before turning back to the strange comedy act preformed by the three. "But I would like that sword of his very much."
"What is it? Durandal?"
"No, but I want that one too. The one he has is Excalibur," he said, clarifying. He was starting to walk normally, when the three jesters, Aerossi, Athena and the Umbral Knight, started getting weirder. Rather than being a serious fight, it looked like a race to see who could last the longest running around the platform while swinging their weapons randomly. None of them hit the other, but…
"Alright, you three. What's 2 + 3?" Volker shouted out, walking normally with me at his side, ready to join in on the fun.
The three of them stopped, and began counting like they had time to waste. Volker and I got right next to the Umbral Knight, and he readied his Deathbringer. I heard Athena and Aerossi making up numbers quietly, and the horseman was actually doing the math, but each number was taking a moment to process.
"Oh! Fiv!" it said suddenly, calling out the answer. It held out its hands and started cheering the number over and over. Volker cracked a smile, before slashing the creature. It looked startled as it buckled and fell on its back with a thud. The three of us jumped, startled before looking at Volker, who stood over the fallen beast.
It started to get up, when Volker kicked it back down. "No! No! I live!" it protested.
"Of course, friends don't kill each other," he said with a smile, before stepping away. The horseman relaxed, before jumping up and literally brushing the scar off. "That was for hitting me earlier. And I still want that blade, but you'd be useless without it."
The horseman regarded him cautiously, then looked at the rest of us. It had no pupils, but its sight wafted over us like heat, but it was friendly and apparently wanted to be friends. I followed Volker back towards the ramp, and with the barrier gone, the four of us followed.
He lead us back the way we came, and waited for us at the waystone. When we were ready, he touched it and three of us were teleported down to the other waystone. The Umbral Knight used a different method of travel and ended up beating us there.
"Let's call him Cedric!" Athena proposed.
"Sure, we need a name for him," Volker agreed, and Cedric cheered. We all chuckled before resuming down the ramp. Volker led us the way he and the others went at first, and we encountered some strange panthers. The group hacked them away without much effort and moved on, before finding the waystone and repeating the process for two more floors, with barriers this time. But heaven forbid that we didn't have Volker's knowledge, as we used the third to last waystone and ended up right in front of the nethicite ore that his shard was made out of.
It was beautiful, shining brighter than the crystal around us. When the three of us, besides Cedric, stopped ogling it, we moved farther down, to the second to last waystone. We took it, with Cedric following us, and ended up in a corridor. The air was quiet, and there was no sounds, like we were the only ones around. We probably were, as everything around us was seemingly undisturbed. Saikun had probably gone ahead of us to clear the path, and he did a good job of it.
Going through the bulwarks, we found him casting a spell on the last waystone, before turning toward us. He had his hood up hiding his face, so I guess it could have been anyone, but since he was the only one that had shown himself, I could make that guess.
"Hey," Volker called friendly, and Saikun turned around, but we found that it wasn't him, but a girl. She backed away and teleported without a portal, making it hard to follow her. Instead, he sighed and we moved on, stopping and preparing for the last waystone travel. Cedric was going to have to stay behind, but we're coming back for him, right?
Athena
Ashleyian Piren was a young farmer girl who was around fifteen at the time. She was small and petite, and she hadn't found her spark of life yet, so her eyes were empty of desire and her being was truly innocent. There was no darkness in her heart, yet no light, like a doll. She didn't have a good singing voice, and she was weak, frail even. I would have to teach her about the world on our travels.
The prince then got greedy, and would only let me go on the condition that I married him. I rejected his offer and snuck out with Ashleyian during the night a day later. We ran off, and with the prince's men fast asleep, we got hastily married to spite the prince. Ashleyian, being as young and innocent as she was, complied without question, and with that out of the way we ran off into the unknown.
My mother, after hearing from her yet unknown to me sources that I had gotten married to Ashleyian, came to give me praise, and helped us escape the kingdom, leaving all of her belongings behind. I heard from someone else that she had taken everything worthwhile and hid them beforehand, and burned down the house she had lived in.
She introduced me to a man named Ezashin who was a sorcerer from the distant future, and he taught us about the hidden world that my mother hadn't told me about. The supernatural world that plays and preys on the mortal one, hides in the shadows and in the light, hidden by the face of mortals. Ezashin himself was a demon, and he granted us immortality for nothing but our 'time'.
Soon, we learned how to cast spells and traveled without care, the prince forgotten. We heard about cities being started up and some dying down, and we traveled to all of them. Eventually, the emptiness in Ashleyian's eyes was replaced with emotion and personality, and we grew close, very close. Suddenly we couldn't imagine a life without each other, Ezashin or my mother be damned. But eventually the prince found us and took me and her back to his kingdom to be tried.
It had been a full three years, when Ashleyian and I should have aged much, but we were only mentally, not physically, three years older. The prince only saw that I had stayed the same beautiful person he last seen those three years ago, and not the woman I had become. He put me and her into prison, not recognizing how wrong he was in doing so. Ezashin located us and offered his power, and in payment that I would take every life in the kingdom, sans Ashleyian, my mother, a woman named Celty and a man named Noel. Those two were important to him for a different matter.
I agreed, and he introduced Noel sometime later to finish my magical training. My mother had been searching for Celty at that point in time, and fortunately the prince had enough honor and pride that he kept up his patience and askings of marriage. I kept my mouth shut on the matter of me and Ashleyian marrying each other, and still denied him on Ezashin's orders. Soon, though, the game began and the entire group wrecked havoc on the kingdom.
The prince fled and left his father the king to deal with us, and managed to escape the destruction until it was over, when he returned to the coliseum to wait for me. I met him and he tried to force himself onto me, but I kept him at bay. After all, he was only a prince, now king of a non-existent kingdom, and I was a traveler.
I told him about our adventures, like he had asked in the beginning of my adventure, and finished with the fact of me being married to Ashleyian. He listened patiently, from years of experience, and buckled to the ground in true representation of his kingdom. He couldn't believe me, but he could do not a thing. Celty, the woman I had later regretted letting do so, appeared and took the man away and used as a bargaining chip with the future to preserve her form, and became immortal.
As I was ignorant of the fact until much, much later on, I thought nothing of it and returned to Ashleyian, to find that she had been kidnapped by madness and had been taken away farther than I had ever been. I then found that they, my mother, Ezashin, Noel, and Celty had left me without support afterwards.
After a series of epiphanies, I found that I was just fine, that I had places to go and someone to find. Someone dear to me, a young woman named Ashleyian Piren.
Volker
I braced myself for the Occuria, ready to face their near-divine power. However, when the waystone dropped us, we were not on the platform in the sky. Instead, we find ourselves in a old but large shrine. It had a high ceiling and was made of rocks, and the walls held several large statues, and to one side there was a, opening to the courtyard. The place was covered in moss, and the wind blowing through made a steady hum.
"Where are we?" Athena asked, but I could only shake my head.
"I don't know. Not where we're supposed to be," I told her, before a familiar portal appeared and Ezashin and Rachael stepped out, as well as a new girl. She was a blond elf with fair, unflawed rosy pink skin. Her eyes were the same amber color as the other daemons-
Daemons, demons, what's the difference besides origin?
… and carried a large scythe. The handle was black and the blade bronze. There was a counterbalance on the other tip that resembled a crescent moon, which hooked back towards her. She was taller than me and Ezashin, and was ever so slightly muscular that her muscles pushed her arms out.
"Volker, my boy, you disappoint me. I believe we had an agreement," Ezashin said, his hands on his staff.
"The agreement was that I return the shard and then find you. I was right about to meet with the Occuria when the waystone took me here," I told him.
"What was my other condition? If you steel yourself and/or train prior to making the agreement that we would take it upon ourselves to rid you of your companions. I believe that making a pact with… your umbral horseman counts," he pointed out.
"Well that's not completely fair," Saikun's voice echoed, before appearing beside me. "You have to let him get there before you can say that."
"Ah, Saikun my boy! Perfect timing once more!" Ezashin said with a friendly tone. "I was just about to send my Kill Sat over your home on behalf of the End, but seeing how you're here and not there makes the process go so much smoother. Now if only Michael can finish without me that would make my day all the better."
Athena growled, but Saikun put out his arm to intercept her. "Oh ho ho! My deary, you just become more cuter when you're angry, so it's not going to work on this fellow. Anyway, Bianca, don't you want to introduce them to someone?"
"Aerossi and Volk, I'll send you to deal with the Kill Sat; Athena and Ash, deal with the other two. I've got Bianca," Saikun said quickly, drawing his sword and blocking the elf. He pressed Bianca and threw her into the air over the courtyard and threw out his arm to make a portal to his hometown. I hurried through with Aerossi behind me, leaving Athena and Ash to deal with Ezashin and Rachael.
To be honest, I might have met Saikun sometime in my life, maybe during some sessions of dungeons and dragons, but even though I couldn't remember when or where I might have met him, his home town was mine too.