Chapter 9: ADORA
When the transit shrine light faded, the whispers began. I clutched my staff against the darkness that swarmed around the minds and bodies of the afflicted. Gaze falling on the skilled knife user in our party. His aura was darker than usual.
Almost as dark as our leaders before she had disappeared.
Ignoring the bowman's attempts at conversation with the adorable Priestess Ruby, I walked to the angry knife user, Fera. The human world was complicated and dark. It was almost as if Zelnaris was already choking the light from the earth.
"What happened?" I asked, looking up at him, but he didn't speak. He didn't seem to talk to anyone besides our leader, "where did our leader go?"
"Don't know. Don't care." He spoke, and I was a bit surprised to even get a reaction from him, "I'm leaving."
Oh no he didn't. Not without an explanation. An answer for what happened. I felt the magic well up inside of me, he sensed I was up to something and he quickly turned to face me, but vines already sprang up from the earth, wrapping him in tendrils of light.
"I'll let you go when you—"
I felt my spell shatter and a gasp fell from my lips, impossible. He was just a human; how could he break my magic? I felt a smile break across my lips, it should be impossible, so why was I feeling so...excited?
Quick words were spoken under my breath and a giant behemoth rose from the ground, smashing him to the ground with a clawed embrace. I wasn't worried about using too much force, we had a priest on our side.
There was a loud roar and his dark dragon flew over the town, oh...I forgot about that. "Call off your dragon. I just want to talk." I said seriously, he looked at the pulsing red dragon that held him bound and glared at me,
"Funny way of showing it."
I grinned at him, "now will you keep running or can I tell Pudge to get off of you?"
"What's going on?" Little Ruby ran up to us, concern written all over her face. That's right, she was taking care of the new survivors, she didn't know what happened.
"Only he knows where our leader went, and what's wrong. He won't talk though, so Pudge caught him." I explained cheerfully, Ruby's face blanched that 'Pudge' was not like his namesake and was a well-muscled two-ton dragon.
"General Song is gone?" She asked quietly,
"Fine. Let me up. This is humiliating." Fera growled behind his mask, Pudge removed the heavy weight that was his foot, and Fera got to his feet with a huff, sheathing the knives at his side, and brushing down his light armor.
I smiled at him, glad to have him see reason. Pudge disappeared with a flash of light, and I held my staff close, leaning on it, "sooo, what happened?"
"The Onyx Order failed to retrieve the Princess. And Silver blames me for it." I blinked at his short and concise explanation. That definitely wasn't the whole story, I could tell, besides, it didn't even make sense.
"He's a part of the Onyx Order." Ruby explained, and both Ken and I understood, at least slightly. The Onyx Order was a group of elite spies, of course they wouldn't be able to save the Princess, they needed someone like me, someone to bring the firepower!
"Sorry, coming into this late, what's Silver's connection to the Princess?" Ken asked and we all stared at him, almost in awe of how clueless he could be.
"General Song? She's literally the Princess's Royal Guard, how can you not know that?"
"Wait. The General Song? The one who defeated King Hadakhan? The one who won back the Eclipsed Shrine in the Rift, you mean THAT'S HER?! THAT'S THE SILVER BLADE OF THE WEST—"
"Yeah." I nodded, even I knew that, and I didn't even live in this dimension. This ranger really was clueless, did he even know how to fire that bow slung across his shoulder?
"I can't believe I tried to flirt with her, she is wayyyy out of my league,"
"She's also gay." Fera muttered and we all looked at him, and he shrugged, "it's true."
"I can't imagine the Princess would be kidnapped on her watch, do you know what happened, assassin man?" Ken asked, Fera inclined a brow at the name, but spoke none the less,
"Silver was on an assignment to beat back the Khabimists, here, Princess Lania left the castle with an escort to see Prophet Chimer about something, they were attacked. Crow apprehended a Fallen Legion spy in the castle guard...she was also a part of the Princess's escort."
"I think it's unrealistic to say that our leader blames you, if anything, she probably blames herself." I pointed out, and his face darkened more than it already was. I didn't think it was possible
"I said it was her fault."
"Fera!" Ruby cried in astonishment, "how could you say that?!"
"Shut up Ruby, I'm already mad at myself enough as it is, don't add to it."
"You need to apologize to her!" Ruby said again,
"I know, but she should apologize to me too." I sighed, humans were so complicated, always blaming one another, blaming themselves. There was only one thing to blame.
Zelnaris. God of Ruin and Chaos, he's the one that had orchestrated all this darkness, he was darkness.
And by the will of Ellora, we would stop him once and for all. "We have to find the Princess. We need to go to Parna's Coast"
"What about General Song?" Ruby asked fervently, I could tell that she had some unrequited feelings for our leader, but I didn't say anything, Fera beat me to it.
"If she's not already in Parna's Coast, then honestly I don't know." Fera admitted, "but we'll have to make preparations, the winter has spread there recently."
"But it's summer," I complained.
"I heard there was dark magic at work, regardless, I've always loved the snow. When do we leave?" Ken asked, we all turned to look at him, personally, I was confused when he had joined our motley group of warriors. It's not like we weren't formed this morning to stop an evil God. Well, I hardly believed the others knew where our journey would take us. But I had an inkling...and I was itching to throw a fireball at the evil God for making my Ellora worry so.
And yet we were already falling apart. Our leader was missing, there seemed to be tension between Fera and Ken, Ruby was beside herself with worry over the villagers, but now that the vampire menace had been stopped, hopefully they could begin to recover.
Hopefully they would be able to see the light.
"Wait, you're coming with us?" Ruby questioned suddenly, voicing what was on all of our minds.
"Hell yeah I am, we gotta save the Princess!"
"Are you sure it's not because you want to see General Song again?" I asked with a smirk, and his lips pursed, and then he shrugged.
"Ugh. Whatever, does everyone have warm clothes?" Fera asked, his voice was disgruntled behind the mask. Everyone shook their heads, there was a heavy sigh from the dark-haired assassin before he began to pull clothes out of his void space. A coat hit my face and I grabbed it.
"You...have a lot of clothes..." Ken muttered under his breath, covering himself in a warm cloak, Fera rolled his eyes, electing not to give an explanation. I wondered if he liked having clothes, it would be unexpected for his personality type, but it would be cute if that was the case.
I bundled myself up, it was quite difficult, however, not only was I much shorter than the average human, but I also had the wings on my back to worry about, Fera and Ruby were able to help me alter the clothes, at least a little so that it was easier to move around in it, I could already feel the warmth seeping into my body.
"Were these enchanted to provide warmth?" Ruby asked, pulling on her own cloak,
"Random effects that happened after I made them, I have others that can make you colder, others that resist magic, and—"
"Dude, how many clothes do you have?" Ken asked, Fera scowled at him, pulling on warmer armor himself. "Are we good to go? How will we meet up with the General?"
"If we find a lead on the Princess, we'll find Silver." Fera declared putting the clothes that hadn't been worn back into his void space. I wondered if it was possible for the void space to get full, or if they could be filled with an infinite number of clothes.
"No, wait!" Our walk to the transit shrine was halted by one of the village elders, "don't leave us! We don't have soldiers to protect us—"
"The vampires are dead, the immediate threat is gone," Fera said simply, the wrinkled face fell
"Please..."
My heart went out to him, "we can stay for a little bit, they should be dispatching soldiers here soon, right?" I glanced at my companions before continuing, "in the meantime, we can make sure that the vampires are really gone, I don't want to leave the village in need of protection."
Fera shrugged then, and surprisingly it was Ruby that was against the idea, "we should reunite with General Song as soon as possible, it's dangerous to be alone."
"You do realize she practically took on the Carleon house single-handedly and won, right?" Ken offered to the priestess, and she bit her lip,
"I know she's strong. But she can't take the weight of everything...and there's no way she's not tired from all that fighting. If she continues at this rate, even a General will fall."
Ruby was right, no human could withstand those conditions, they would burn out in a blaze of glory. But at the same time, to forsake those that have asked for our help, something as simple as standing by while more soldiers arrive, was not something that we could ignore. It wasn't something we should ignore.
"We must trust that our leader will be okay. For the Princess's sake. We should help all subjects of Ellora if we're able." Ruby went quiet after that, preparations were made, Fera left to go to the manor and make sure all the vampires had been killed, Ken gathered things he thought he would need for the journey, Ruby and I ministered to the sick.
"Have you known our leader long?" I asked as we gathered food from the farm that had been ransacked by the vampires, Ruby nearly dropped the bag of flour.
"No...I just met her this morning, same as you. But I've heard a lot about her."
"Really? You act as if you've known her for a time,"
Ruby shook her head, "I've only seen her a few times when I was called to the castle for duties, I just have admired her...is that weird?" She asked hesitantly, I smiled slightly at her innocence. She obviously admired the General, anybody could see that. Or perhaps I could see it because I knew exactly what she was going through.
I also 'admired' our Goddess Ellora.
"I don't think that's weird," I said, hoisting another bag of food onto Pudge's back, "what do you know about our leader? I'm still quite confused with...everything."
"General Song...she's actually younger than I am."
Well, that was a surprise, I was sure that Ruby was the youngest of the group. She had one of those faces, or maybe I was just really old, but our leader definitely seemed older—
"See, it surprised you too." Ruby laughed slightly, walking away from us to pick up a basket with potatoes in it, she was quite strong despite her slender frame. "I'm only a half a year older than her though, she's much more accomplished then I'll ever be."
"Is it common for Generals to be as young as her?"
She shook her head, confirming my thoughts that our leader was one of a kind in terms of strength, and it was the kind of information that made sense knowing she was the Princess's Royal Guard.
"She was given the title when she was 19, two years later when Princess Lania turned 16, General Song also became her Royal Guard."
I let out a low whistle, a General, at 19? That was a lot of responsibility for someone to shoulder, no wonder she seemed much older than she was. She had been forced to grow up too soon.
In what world was it okay for a child to have to become an adult before their time? A General at 19 meant she had been a part of the military many years previous. Who would let a child wield a sword?
"Do you think this is enough food?" Ruby's voices suddenly broke through my thoughts, Pudge looked like he could carry more but he was covered in sacks and baskets of food. Although summoning him was a constant drain on my mana, it made tasks like this easy and efficient.
"Yeah, let's head back," I nodded, glancing at how the rays of sunlight were barely making it over the vast mountainous walls around us. It was getting late, would soldiers arrive before tomorrow?
I hoped so, the last thing I wanted was to be burying our leader with more responsibility. She didn't need that, I didn't want her to break. No doubt she was already full of turmoil, her charge, the Princess, had been kidnapped. No one would be alright after knowing that things could have happened differently.
'What ifs' were a plague to the human mind.
The villagers thanked us profusely, unloading the food, albeit a bit hesitantly, Pudge was truly intimidating to look at. But he was a good boy, and he helped bring food to the villagers! Ken was talking to another lady, probably still stocking up on supplies.
I was surprised he wanted to come with us, not many would be excited for sleepless nights, discomfort in the forms of battle exhaustion, and surely, he knew that eventually, our journey could take us face to face with Salant himself?
That being of darkness that was born of Ruin himself. He was hell-bent on reviving his father that had been sealed away at the conclusion of the War of Light. Strength was only one of the qualities he had taken from his father, he also had a meticulous detail for planning, and scheming.
Surely more than one of us wouldn't make it home in the fight against Salant. And if he were to be successful? If he revived Zelnaris...no, that would NOT happen, Ellora would stop it. Ellora always had a plan, and I trusted her with complete fidelity.
Everything would turn out okay.
It had to.
Shortly after we finished distributing the food, Fera returned, the villagers eagerly awaited what he would say about the vampires, "they're dead." He had said simply, and that concluded the nightmare that the villagers had been forced to live.
It hadn't lasted much longer than 24 hours, but its effects would no doubt last years, perhaps decades. The thought saddened me, the lives of humans were so incredibly short, and yet they were always full of tragedy and sadness.
I hoped to alleviate some of it, to brighten their days to the best of my ability. That's all I wished in life, to help others—
I was yanked from my thoughts with the sound of a whinny. Soldiers had arrived from another camp. Ruby perked up instantly, glad that we could finally continue our journey.
"We can stay in Reedwatch for the night, we can figure out the best way to deal with Rondo tomorrow," Fera said, I visibly jumped, he was right behind me and I hadn't noticed his presence. No...he was dangerous, even for a human, I would need to keep a better eye on him. We bid farewells to the villagers, their worries had been abated with the reinforcements that had arrived.
The transit shrine was blindingly bright when I first registered, we were no longer in Kellwoods, and instead of the summer breeze, a chilling wind about froze my wings off. It was quiet, the moon was full, and I was freezing.
And then I was quite grateful for the coat that Fera had let me borrow, I pulled it tighter around my body.
"Yeah, I'm gonna want another one of your sweaters, my guy, it's fucking cold." Ken said, I was unsure if anyone had actually given him the 'okay' to travel with us, but no one was complaining, unless you counted Fera's scowl, then he would be complaining all the time.
Fera was about to retort when a series of voices broke through the cold night air. I recognized one of them.
Fera was right about one thing, our leader was already here, and based on the shouting, she was not very happy.
Author's Note: Not sure what to say this time around, except that I've finally finished the complete rough draft of this story, we've got a long journey ahead of us! And its gonna be *gay*