Yeah, the shit hit the fan last chapter. But now with that out of the way, let's get some plot twists going, shall we? I can't wait to see your faces! (Well, not really, but you know what I mean.)
The lack of spirits at the Frelian palace turned out to be a trap. Inside the palace, a possessed L'arachel takes Ephraim and the armies prisoner.
However, with the help of the now-resurrected Lyon of Grado, Ike and five others escape the castle without detection. Without wasting a second more, the seven of them approach the land that used to be Grado through the forests of Renais. When they reach the border between Renais and Grado, Lyon teleports them the rest of the way to the enchanted garden of Katchei, which has been concealed in the lava that has covered Grado for several years.
Upon entering the garden, the gears of fate slowly begin to turn in Ike's favor...
Chapter 14: Katchei's Enchanted Garden
The wind settled from where they had warped, and the group found themselves among some of the most beautiful foilage they had ever seen. For Ike, it was exactly as he had envisioned it in his dream; flowers bloomed everywhere, and the trees themselves seemed to burst with a strange kind of life that was foreign to every single person in the group. They gaped in awe for a few moments, taking in the sight that was amplified very well by the moonlight that hovered overhead.
"This is beautiful..." said Alyosha softly in a strange kind of whisper.
"It is..." said Maria.
"'Ey, whaddye dink yer doin'?" asked Willie.
"Willie's right," said Cormag. "We're here to figure out more about what's going on, not to look at plants."
"Well, you do have to admit that this is a beautiful garden," said Lyon with a shrug. "But you have a point."
"So this is where the garden is?" asked Seth. "What happens to anybody that gets here?"
"I would not know," said Lyon. "But that is business for some other time. Let us find the women and see what they can tell us."
"The women?" asked Alyosha as the group walked on.
"I had a second dream," said Ike, walking up to the large man as they moved. "There were a bunch of ladies there. I guess this is where they are..."
Maria shrugged at all of this and kept on walking. She knew she had to trust other sources now; her hearing had not been as good as it used to be before she became pregnant with Ike's baby.
Suddenly, Maria heard something close by where they were that sounded like apples being plucked and thrown about. As soon as she heard this, she motioned for the group to stop, and they all paused at exactly the same moment.
"Hey, what's that?" she asked in a half-whisper.
The group shrugged, and then Maria edged forward, using the bushes that were nearby as cover and creeping in, just parting the leaves so she could get a look. After this, she suppressed a giggle, and turned to the men and motioned them to where she was. The men walked towards her, kneeling down and peeking through the bushes to see what Maria was laughing about.
When they parted the bushes, they found eleven women clad in white dresses running about laughing. They also noticed the little golden apples that they were throwing about the place with rapid strokes of their arms. They were all recognizable as they ran around throwing the apples this way and that.
"Is... is dat Viordilegi?" asked Willie in a half-whisper.
"It is," said Maria. "And..."
"Eirika!" said Seth as she watched Fiordiligi and Eirika take up a part of the field they were in just in time to catch an apple that was headed towards them.
"Wow..." said Lyon under his breath. "She is more beautiful than I remember her to be..."
"Princess Tana?" asked Cormag softly as the group saw a woman with bright blue hair run into the scene gleefully, chasing Eirika down playfully.
"You know Tana?" asked Lyon quickly.
"I was inducted in her service after what happened here," said Cormag with a shrug.
"Wait..." said Ike as his eyes fell upon a woman with brown hair and another one with hair a stark shade of purple. "My goodness! It's Mist and Mia!"
"You know those two?" asked Alyosha.
"I should know," said Ike. "One was in my mercenary company for years and the other is my sister!"
"'Ow'd dey get all deh way 'ere?" asked Willie.
"I don't know," said Ike with a shrug.
"My goodness..." said Cormag, just as he noticed a woman with green hair running and chasing after two women, one of them with red hair and the other with hair of a subdued shade of lavender. "Lady Syrene is here too!"
"And Tethys and Marisa are here too!" said Seth softly. "How did Gerik fail to protect them?"
"And who are those other two people?" asked Maria as she eyed two blonde women with long braids.
"My god..." said Alyosha. "It is Anna and Nastenka!"
"Where they living in your village?" asked Lyon.
"Yes," said the large man. "Now I understand why the elders wanted her out of the way..."
"Her, meaning the lady we saw when we met you?" asked Ike.
"Yes," said Alyosha.
The girls kept up their games with what looked to be a whole group of golden apples for quite some time, the seven of them looking on in astonishment as they saw the women they all knew well throwing the apples around.
"Oh, boy..." said Ike. "This is very wierd..."
"You're telling me this?" asked Cormag with a glance. "This is scary, that's what it is."
"But my question is, how do we get to them?" asked Lyon.
The prince's question was answered when suddenly a stray apple flew into the bushes and whacked Willie in the face.
"Aaaaoooow!" cried the Cockney boy, clutching his eyepatch as he fell back. "Me eye!"
"Well, I guess that answers that concern," said Maria as the women suddenly turned their heads towards the direction that Willie's call had come from.
"Show yourselves!" said Fiordiligi authoritatively. "Or so help me Sharotal, I'm tossing another apple in your direction!"
The group stood up as one unit with Alyosha helping Willie to his feet as he brought his hands away from his face. And one by one, they walked into the field that the girls had been inhabiting up to that point. All of the girls either widened their eyes in surprise or tilted their heads.
The shock of this was over as suddenly, Fiordiligi ran over to Willie and pulled him into her tight embrace.
"Willie!" said Fiordiligi, who had literally lifted the Cockney boy up into the air and was swinging him arond. "You're all right!"
"Me eye ain't never good," replied Willie.
Upon hearing this, Fiordiligi loosened her hold on Willie and suddenly noticed the eye patch that was on Willie's eye.
"Goodness!" said Fiordiligi, violently repelled at the thought of the strong-willed Cockney boy losing his eye. "What happened?"
"It's a pretty long story," said Maria, who approached Fiordiligi as she and Willie turned to look at her.
"Seth?" asked Eirika. "You went all the way to Grado...?"
"Of course, milady," said Seth in reply. "Why would I not?"
"Seth, I want to talk with you in private," said Eirika.
"Of course," said Seth as the two of them walked off into the foilage.
"Cormag!" cried Tana excitedly, literally jumping on the wyvern knight in her excitement.
"Oof!" he said as he landed on the earth. "Tana, not so rough, please..."
"You're here for me!" said Tana happily.
"But, milady, I don't even know if you're going to get busted out yet!" exclaimed a flustered Cormag.
"Oh, come off it!" said Tana. "A knight ought to be informal with his lady somehow!"
Cormag shook his head as the princess of Frelia laughed.
Alyosha found himself being approached by the two women he knew from his village. The two of them eyed him curiously, sapphire orbs looking over him.
"Alyosha Popovich," said the taller woman of the two. "What brings you here?"
"It is a very long story, Anna," said Alyosha with a shrug. "The elders wanted me to take your sister to the hut on chicken's legs in Rausten. On the way, I met these people and joined them."
"And where is your trusty axe?" asked the shorter woman, who was apparently Nastenka.
Alyosha suddenly found he could not speak about his axe without seeming to be ashamed of himself for losing it. But, he swallowed a gulp and proceeded to tell the two ladies his story.
"Ike?" asked Mist, as she and Mia suddenly came forward. "Is that really you?"
"Mist..." said Ike, unsure what to say.
There was silence, and then suddenly Mia and Mist both latched onto the mercenary.
"You had us worried there, boss!" said Mia.
"I thought I'd never seen you again!" said Mist, crying tears of joy as she spoke.
"Mist, Mia..." said Ike softly. "Why'd you two come all the way out here?"
"We missed ya," said Mia with a weak smile. "Especially Mist."
"So we wanted to come find you," said Mist, choking on sobs as she spoke. "Oh, I'm so happy right now..."
"Aha, so these are the two people from Tellius!" exclaimed Maria a little too loudly as she, Fiordiligi, and Willie approached the three of them.
Mist and Mia both looked over to the energetic cat laguz, the two of them putting on strange faces.
"Oh!" said Ike with a laugh. "Mist, Mia, I'd like you to meet some people here. The laguz is Maria, the lady is Fiordiligi, and the boy is Willie."
"Nice teh meet yah, mu'um!" said Willie, coming forward and shaking Mia's hand ardently.
"Wow, that's... quite a bit of energy ya got there kid!" said Mia.
"Kid?" asked Fiordiligi. "Why, you? He has the brand on his shoulder, for the sake of Sharotal!"
"Oh, ya do?" asked Mia with a shrug and a wierd look.
"Yep, mu'um," said Willie. "Don't tell me ya 'ate us branded folks!"
"Not that," said Mia. "It's just, your accent's really wierd..."
"Oh, that," said Fiordiligi. "Leave that to a lifetime on the streets."
"Maria..." said Mist. "There's something about you and Ike... What is it?"
"Uh, Mist, are you sure you want to know?" asked Ike.
"Hey, she's your sister," interjected Maria. "She's got the right to know, yes?"
"Know about what, boss?" asked Mia, her attention suddenly diverted.
"Uh..." said Ike. "Maria is... pregnant... with my child..."
Mist and Mia gaped at him almost as iff something strange had happened.
"You what?" asked Mist loudly.
"Hey, Mist, hold yer horses!" said Mia with a laugh. "It's okay. Right?"
"Yeah, it's okay," said Mist. "But I don't get it. How did it happen?"
"It's a pretty long story," said Maria. "But it's great that I get to meet my lover's sister!"
"Same here," said Mist as her shocked mood slowly subsided.
Ike let out a sigh of relief at this.
"Wet's up?" asked Willie.
"I just thought it was goin' to be harder than that, that's all," said Ike with a calm expression on his face.
"Well, ya know we knew ya for quite some time, boss!" said Mia with a broad smile. "We'll take anythin' ya throw at us! Anythin'! Ya hear?"
"My, so much energy..." said Fiordiligi.
"So, that leaves us with our next question," said Mist. "Where are you three from?"
"We're from the continent of Greljedo, of course," said Maria with a shrug.
"Greljedo," said Mist. "Did you find anything there?"
"Absolutely," said Fiordiligi.
"Oh!" said Mia. "I wanna hear about it!"
"Well, okay," said Ike with a shrug. "It's a long story, so we should sit."
"Sure thing, boss!" said Mia.
The six of them sat down, and Ike began retelling the tales of the group's adventures on Greljedo.
Lyon stood to the side with Marisa and Tethys at his side. The dancer looked at the prince strangely, almost in disbelief.
"So you're not going to do anything at all?" asked the dancer.
"We have the entire night," said Lyon. "I can wait for them to finish if it is absolutely necessary."
The two women nodded and looked at the scene of happiness before them.
Eirika led Seth to a clearing in the large trees of the garden. The clearing they had walked to was beautiful; the flowers were in full bloom all around them, and the moonlight shone down on all of the flowers and left a strange kind of luminoscity on them all that was strangely pleasant.
As soon as they reached the clearing, however, Eirika turned to face the knight, the stern look in her eyes showing she was serious.
"One of the women here can read minds," said Eirika simply. "She can read minds from thousands of miles away, especially if they are in pain. And I asked about you, and she said that you tore yourself apart inside when I was kidnapped."
"Of course, Eirika," said Seth. "It's natural of one of my stature in relation to yourself to worry about you."
"But she said there was something else involved," said Eirika. "I want you to tell me something, Seth."
The queen edged closer to Seth, standing right in front of him so that it would be impossible for him to ignore her.
"How long?" she said simply, her eyes hard and determined to find answers.
"What?" asked Seth. "What are you talking about?"
"How long, Seth?" asked the queen again. "I know that somewhere in your heart, there's a part of you that denies me..."
"What do you mean?" asked Seth, trying his best to keep to himself as his defenses crumbled all around him.
"Oh, come off of it, Seth!" cried Eirika. "Be a man and admit your feelings!"
A tense silence came through the clearing, and Seth turned around so that he faced away from Eirika.
"Please, milady," said the knight as his final defense fell down. "I've tried so hard to supress these feelings; don't make it any harder on me to love my queen than it--"
"Oh, for heaven's sake!" cried Eirika angrily. "Forget about this 'queen' stuff! Treat me like a woman, Seth! I refuse to have you treat me like a queen any longer! Take me for what I am!"
Another silence took hold of the clearing, this silence being infinitely shorter than the one before it. With a sigh, Seth finally turned around and walked to Eirika, taking her hand in his as he looked into those teal eyes that were so perfect in every way.
"Eirika..." said Seth softly.
The queen was given no further warning before suddenly she felt the knight's lips brush against her own. The queen smiled brightly at this, almost as if she did not care about it at all. Eirika's reaction shocked the knight, who was suddenly at a loss for words for a few seconds.
"Eirika..." said Seth, almost breathless that Eirika was not in the least bit shocked. "You weren't--"
"All these years I tried to get you to open up," said Eirika softly. "It took a kidnapping in the midst of this war to finally get me as close as I had wanted you to be all these years."
And in that instant, Seth felt his entire world crumble around him until only Eirika and he were in it. Now the knight realized how stupid he had been not to notice the way she would command him to stop being so formal around her. And now, he felt bad about it.
But that feeling was minimal. For then, there was one truth, and one truth alone; Eirika had felt much the same way he did for five years.
"Milady..." said the knight softly. "I don't think this is--"
The lady hushed Seth with two of her fingers, and then she started the next kiss after she removed her hands.
Seth's inhibitions had been lowered, and this time the two of them relished in their kiss, the moonlight shining down on them as if it did not care at all for what was going on beneath it.
"So Katchei turns the people that try to come here into statues?"
"Yes. It's quite sad, actually."
"Oh dear. That can't be good."
"Are yeh kiddin' meh? Dat be 'orrible, mu'um!"
When Seth and Eirika had returned from their little diversion in the garden and Ike had finished telling the story of his journeys on Greljedo to Mist and Mia, everybody sat around in a large circle. Lyon had initiated the conversation, hoping to find out more information on Katchei and what he hoped to achieve by taking over the continent. And as Katchei's evil became more apparent, Ike became more convinced that he had to be stopped.
"So, he turns any resistance into statues?" asked Seth.
"Yes," replied Mist. "He's done it to the maidens that are not part of the thirteen as well..."
"That's terrible!" said a shocked Maria. "He can't do that!"
"Oh, dear..." said Alyosha. "But what is he after?"
"He's after somethin' in some 'Rausten', I dunno," said Mia. "Some 'Staff of Latona' or something."
"Staff of Latona..." said Seth. "That means..."
"Wait a minute..." said Ike, remembering a detail from his dream. "That's it! The Staff of Latona is the staff that turns into a woman!"
"Wait, what?" asked Nastenka, batting her bangs away. "I do not understand."
"I saw it in a dream," said Ike. "This staff turned into a woman and followed me everywhere. You were all in it too!"
"So why does he need us?" asked Fiordiligi.
"Because he needs you to wake that woman up..." said Maria. "And if that following around meant anything..."
A grave silence took hold of the garden as the implications of this sunk.
"Oh, dear..." said Cormag finally. "This could be bad."
"Dis is bad, Governor!" cried Willie. "We need ta do somevin'!"
"But what do we do?" asked Lyon.
The group sat in silence before Alyosha raised a finger.
"We could go to the witch that lives in the hut!" said Alyosha. "She can help us!"
"But how?" asked Fiordiligi. "What do you expect of some old crone that lives in a strange house?"
"Do not underestimate the might of Baba Yaga!" retorted Anna, blue eyes simmering in a slight fury.
"Baba Yaga?" asked Maria. "Is that the witch's name?"
"Yes," said Alyosha. "We must go. Quickly!"
Before anybody could do anything else, though, the first light shone on the horizon, and to accompany this a trio of trumpets sounded from a long distance away.
"Oh, no..." said Tana. "This is bad!"
"We can't stay here any longer!" said Mia, the eleven maidens suddenly standing up.
"Quick!" said Mist. "You guys go hide somewhere! If you're good, the carillon won't find you!"
"You've got to go back?" asked Ike as the seven intruders abruptly stood up.
"We can't stay out here during the day!" said Anna quickly. "We must go back."
The eleven maidens retreated into the woods. As they retreated, Seth shook his head.
"I'll be back, Eirika!" cried the knight as the sun began to rise.
"We've gotta go find somewhere to hide, now!" said Maria. "Let's go!"
The group of seven had intended to jump back into the brush, but suddenly a loud bell was heard ringing loudly again.
"Oh, no..." said Lyon. "It's the carillon!"
And then the bells suddenly began to ring louder and louder, almost to the point that everybody had to cover their ears as they stood petrified to where they were with fear.
"Wadde we do?" cried Willie suddenly.
"Run!" shouted Maria.
"Where?" asked Ike.
"Anywhere!" cried Maria, before darting off in a random direction.
The remaining six followed as the carillon rose to a dynamic so loud that it was unbearable to the people.
And then, suddenly, from the trees burst forth a monster unlike anything they had ever seen before. It was a towering dragon with pale green scales that breathed fire from its nostils and spewed poison from its mouth. The group, shocked at this, reared back to turn around before they were stopped by a somewhat larger dragon with yellow scales that spewed copius amounts of poison that strangely enough did not affect the foilage beneath it.
The group then turned in another direction, but no further had they gone ten paces than a set of rusalki emerged slowly from the forest. This was enough to get Ike to walk backwards, powerless without their weapons with them and Maria not wanting to tempt fate by transforming and ultimately losing to the number of rusalki and the huge dragons that surrounded them.
As they found themselves surrounded by the monsters, they suddenly found that a low signal was blown throughout the entire land, and then suddenly the monsters parted to leave room for a single man to walk through. As the large man walked forwards, Lyon and the rest of the group stepped back.
The man in question was a very, very large man that was at least two heads taller than Alyosha with a staunch lizard-like complexion, his mouth being replaced with a snout and a thick tail wagging behind him. The lizard was also very muscularly built, and he was adorned in a wizard's garb that dared to expose a muscled body. In his hand, he held a large staff, and with a slow, predatory gait he approached them.
"Ah, so we have another set of scumbags that entered my magic garden..." said the lizardman as he paced around the group, the monsters closing the hole they had opened for him. "And among these scumbags is none other than Lyon of Grado! How amusing!"
"Katchei!" cried Lyon. "You won't get away with what you've done!"
"I won't?" asked the evil sorceror, an evil grin etched on his snout that exposed large, sharp teeth to the group. "That's quite surprising, coming from a small little piece of dirt such as yourself."
"'Ey!" cried Willie angrily. "Don't yeh go callin' noone no dirtbags!"
"Oh, and you even brought a street boy with you," said Katchei with a slight chuckle. "You'd think a prince would keep better company than this..."
"Hey!" said Maria, standing next to Willie and shaking her fist at the lizardman. "You leave Willie outa this, ya hear?"
"Oh, and you even brought a maiden with you!" said Katchei. "I guess your little mischief did pay off for me after all!"
"You can't have her!" said Lyon. "She is with child, damn you!"
The magician's snout instantly pointed itself at Lyon, and then anger flared in Katchei's eyes as he ran over and picked the prince up in his large hands.
"Why, you--!" said Katchei, breathing loudly and angrily so that Lyon could feel the breath of the monster on his face. "You insolent brat! I'll teach you not to make less women accessible to me!"
"He's not the father!" shouted Ike angrily. "I am!"
Katchei turned around, curiously walking over to the mercenary as he carelessly dropped the prince onto the ground.
"Oh, so you are the one making the women pregant," said Katchei, kneeling down so that his ruby eyes could gaze into Ike's sapphire orbs. "You fool! You thought you could take the whole continent from me!"
"He didn't make anybody else pregnant, asshole!" cried Maria. "You keep your hands off of him!"
"Oh, but somebody must be punished!" cried Katchei as he picked Ike up in his grasp and held his staff up.
"Keep your hands off of him!" cried Seth, rushing forward and pushing Katchei's leg out from under him so that the lizardman dropped Ike down on the ground and fell over himself.
"Why, you--!" cried Katchei, standing up and rushing towards Seth as the knight ran away.
This proved futile, however, for then Seth felt himself being flipped upside down and being hoisted up by his left leg so that his eyes gazed into Katchei's demonic eyes.
"You will not get away with that!" said Katchei. "Now, face my wrath!"
"Wait!" cried a female voice suddenly.
The monsters made another line, and then Katchei dropped Seth rudely so that the knight fell on his head. As Cormag and Alyosha helped the Silver Knight up, the eleven maidens they had just been talking with pranced rapidly into view, bowing before Katchei with Fiordiligi the last to emerge before the line closed. Quickly, Fiordiligi walked ahead of the other women and bowed before Katchei.
"My lord Katchei," said Fiordiligi, almost tempting Willie to shout at her if not for the hand on Maria's shoulder that seemed to tell him to calm down. "I implore you; please do not harm any of these young people. They are our friends, Katchei; please do not brush them aside like the dust!"
There was a brief pause in which Willie sighed in relief at Fiordiligi's words. However, Katchei simply shook his head.
"Insolent bitch!" he cried, sweeping the lady by her arm in his grip as he held her up off of the ground.
He did not even say anything as he brought the staff up to a struggling Fiordiligi. As a bright flash from his staff lit up the area even more than the sun was, Fiordiligi let out a cry that was stopped abruptly. When the light cleared away, a stone statuette of a figure exactly like that of Fiordiligi's was seen.
"Viorilegi!" cried Willie, stretching his hands out towards the stone statuette as it was dropped almost carelessly on the ground.
The ten remaining maidens huddled around Fiordiligi's statue quickly, kneeling down and lamenting the statue noisily.
"And now, for the rest of you insolent fools!" cried Katchei. "There's no escape, even from small promises!"
Promises. The word evoked something in Ike's memory.
Suddenly, the mercenary reached into his breastguard and pulled out the firebird feather that had been sitting in there for the longest time.
"The firebird..." muttered Ike under his breath.
Without warning, Ike held the firebird feather high, waving it around almost like a madman would. Katchei laughed at this display, shaking his head.
"Oh, you think waving a red feather around will stop me?" asked Katchei. "My magic is a thousand times more powerful than that puny little thing there!"
"I don't think so, Katchei!" cried Maria. "We just happened to stumble on the firebird when we first got here!"
"Foreigners?" asked Katchei with a surprised expression on his face. "What do you mean, 'first got here'? And what do you mean of the firebird?"
However, Katchei found his words taken away from him when Willie suddenly noticed the telltale light that signaled the firebird's arrival. As it got closer, Bonnie chirped excitedly and flew out of a set of branches she had been hiding in before she got snatched up by one of the dragons.
However, this did not stop the firebird from arriving, with Katchei looking at it, eyes going wide in shock.
"No..." said the sorceror, his pupils contracting in fear.
Before anything else could be done, the firebird let out a loud shriek. Suddenly, the air burst with a strange kind of fire that fell onto the monsters slowly. The rusalki began to cry out in agony as the dragons stormed about. The ten maidens were left to wonder in dangerous territory as Katchei himself jumped up and down trying to put his clothes out as they too realized that the fire could affect them.
In the midst of all of this chaos, nobody noticed the firebird shrieking a second time, and with this second time, a large feather fell from the sky around the seven people that needed rescuing, and a set of loud calls followed this.
"'E says teh get da feaver!" cried Willie, rushing to grab a hold of the feather.
The other six needed no other prompting to grab the feather. Seth looked to see if he could find Eirika in the crowd, and when he did and their eyes connected, he gave an unhappy look to Willie.
"Why can't we rescue the maidens?" asked Seth loudly.
The firebird called several more times.
"'E says dat as long as dey be under 'is contre, dey cain't never leave dis garden!" cried Willie. "Dey be in some kind ef... spell, I dunno!"
Before anybody could say anything else, the firebird flew down to the seven of them, and with a third cry the fire and Ike's group all dissapeared, leaving the monsters there to wonder what had just transpired.
However, Katchei noticed the linnet bird that one of the dragons had managed to keep in its claws in all of the chaos. Smiling smugly, the sorceror took the linnet bird out of the dragon's hand. He did not even say anything as he crushed the bird in his grip, opening his hands and letting the shower of blood, bones, and organs rain down onto the ground.
With a shake of his head, he turned to his monsters.
"We will get them next time!" said Katchei.
As the monsters left, the ten maidens stayed there, all of them looking up at Katchei with wide eyes.
"And as for you," said Katchei with an evil leer as he leaned towards them. "You're getting the special treatment for that little stunt you pulled there.'
Without warning, Katchei took Mia into his hand, and the other women cowered back as Katchei slowly walked away, letting out a maniacal laugh as he proceeded onwards.
Meanwhile, the seven of them found themselves teleported to a distant place, where the foilage was suddenly much less beautiful than it had been in Katchei's garden. As the group stood up, they sighed in relief.
"Good," said Cormag. "We're outa there. That's good."
"But the maidens are still in danger!" said Seth loudly. "What are we going to do?"
The firebird chirped almost angrily at Seth.
"'E says not teh worry bout dem," said Willie with a shrug.
"Yeah," said Maria. "We'll get back there eventually."
"Yep," said Ike. "What now?"
"What I want to know is where we are," replied Lyon.
The firebird chirped flatly at this comment, which left Willie wondering a few things.
"'E says we be in 'Norv Rus'en', Governor," replied Willie. "I cain't say it roight..."
"You mean Rausten," suggested Lyon.
"Yep, dat be it Governor!" exclaimed Willie.
"Northern Rausten," said Alyosha softly.
Without warning, the large man walked into the woods, the rest of the group following him.
"Alyosha, what're you doing?" asked Cormag.
"We must find the hut of Baba Yaga," said Alyosha. "She will be able to help us defeat that monstrosity, I know it."
"Okay, then, so this is about Baba Yaga now," said Lyon.
"Look, it's the only place we'll find anything," said Cormag. "So unless you want to go wallow in this Katchei's reign, I guess you need to follow us."
The group followed Alyosha, Lyon going last as the firebird flew above Ike.
"Oh!" said the mercenary as the firebird chirped again. "Thanks!"
The firebird called before perching on Ike's head. The mercenary grimaced at the feeling of the bird resting on his head, to which Maria laughed quite heartily as they continued on their search for the hut of Baba Yaga.