Chapter 53: Darryl's Tower

Spring 79, 1611

"A hole in the picture means it's not completely solved yet," Frey said, an echo on something her mother had told her. This time, she was leading her brother through the castle basement to where she had a warp device that could teleport them to several locations. "And the state of Darryl's tower on the inside is a hole that we need to know."

"Haven't you been trying to get in with all your other visits?" Lest asked.

She nodded. "Yeah, all kinds of ways. Explosives don't scratch the door, key spells and anti-seals get blocked, short teleportation won't work through the walls. I even tried using Etherlink as a crowbar, sending a vein through the joints and expanding it to push the door into opening. I mean, I knew it'd fail but I thought it'd at least crack the door enough for other means to get in. But it didn't do a thing. Here we go, let me set it." She directed the runes to target her marker outside the tower.

Standing a few feet off to let her work safely, Lest scratched his head. "You can't teleport through the walls? Because I got through with Escape when I got Leon."

"Well Escape takes you out of places," Frey said. "It won't take you in somewhere unless it's your home you're going in. Although, that is weird that you got through that way. If you did, then I should have been able to get somewhere teleporting through the walls."

"What about going to the top of the tower to talk to Sano and Uno?" Lest said.

"That's what we're doing today because I can't get those golems to talk to me," she said. "I brought Leon up there once and neither of us could get them to budge."

"I wasn't looking forward to getting up on that top platform again," he said with a shiver. "It's not that I'm afraid of heights, but that place is totally dangerous without taking into account the corrupt runes, cracks into the Forest of Beginnings, and the monsters lurking about."

"I agree, it's not nice but getting past the foxes seems like our best bet and you're the only one so far to make them move," Frey said, holding a hand to him. "Come on, let's go."

Stepping into the warp ring on the floor made the scene briefly turn white before it reformed into the dusty cliff where the tower watched over Selphia. "It took a lot of convincing on my part," Lest said. "But if they're not talking to you, I'll try again. Hmm?" He looked ahead as someone was already there.

Leon was sitting against one of the paws, ignoring the corruptions overhead and likely just thinking there. He turned his ears towards them first, then frowned. "Well well, looks like I'm not getting the afternoon of quiet I came to find. What are you two doing?"

"Research," Frey said. Although she didn't mean to involve Leon today, she was happy to have him out here anyhow. "What are you doing here?"

"Nothing much, just glowering at the corruption that breaks the solitary atmosphere of this place," he said, staying where he was seated as they came up.

"She's trying to convince me to climb to the top of this again to talk with the foxes about getting inside," Lest said. "Or getting the door open."

Leon nodded. "I was giving thought to that too, among other things as they drifted by. Last time you were here Lest, did you actually try to push the door open or just look it over?"

"I just looked at it and copied the main inscription down," he said.

"Oh, but maybe breaking the rune bonds here could undo the seal on the door," Frey said. This had to be tried, if only because climbing up the tower was an ordeal of several hours.

"Maybe if I focused on it," Lest said, getting closer.

"There's that, but also something else that I remembered," Leon said, looking up at them. "Darryl worked with his daughter Misa, an uneasy cooperation because he didn't have a high opinion on the intelligence of women. If you'd told him that it was her and her female descendants that worked on the rune sphere solution, he would have been even more pissed off. However, he did have a son as well."

"I haven't heard about that," Lest said, pausing by the door. Frey checked by enhancing her rune sight, but his power didn't seem to be interfering with the door seal yet.

"There was some mention of him in Misa's works and the letters from Darryl," Frey said. "But he never seemed important."

Leon put his hands behind his head. "I never met the guy, but Darryl sometimes thought about calling him back to help on the rune spring research. Then Darryl went and died shortly after I became a guardian, so I was wondering, what if his seal on this door is only meant to allow his male descendants to pass through?"

"The inscription says nothing about that," Frey said.

"His ghost sure seemed vain enough to make the claim here if he meant his son," Lest said, looking at the door. "But would I really count if I came from Misa's line?"

"Direct from mother to daughter, but what if your blood line is also a direct connection from father to son back to Darryl?" Leon suggested.

"Through our father?" Frey asked. "He never mentioned his family being important, just that his own father had been a wandering swordsman."

"That sounds really wrong," Lest said.

"Hey, it's been twelve centuries," Leon reminded him. "It doesn't have to be anything crazy incestuous to make it happen. And not every family will have just one or two children. Following all the branches backwards for that amount of time might find other crossings for any person alive. That would account for why the foxes recognize you as Darryl's descendant, but they don't respond at all to Frey even though she has a whole library with proof of the connection. Just try opening the door; got nothing to lose in it."

"All right," Lest said, stepping up to put his hand on the door. But he didn't even get a chance to push as his hand passed right through it. The stone rippled in response.

"Oh, that's why you can teleport through the walls and I can't," Frey said, impressed at the old magic. When she touched the door next to her brother's hand, it was solid rock. His rune breaking power wasn't even troubling the enchantment. "It allows a direct male descendant of Darryl to pass through, but no one else. And even if Leon is right about how the descendants could have gone anywhere and be anyone, finding a direct male one would be hard after all this time."

Lest pulled his hand out of the wall. "I could probably break the seal, but it's going to take a serious effort. Or I could just walk in and find a way to open it from the inside. But this is too weird. How do I end up with all the powers our mother's family were hoping for and also be one to get past this enchantment through our father?"

"Some gods work in mysterious ways," Leon said with a shrug.

There was a snap in the air, calling their attention away from the door. The two fox golems appeared by them in a smaller form than how they were on top. "You are the new master of the tower," Sano said.

"Why did you say you were not?" Uno asked.

"I didn't know I was, or even what you meant," Lest said, going over to them and crouching down. "Are you two all right? Last time we talked, you got yelled at by Darryl's ghost."

"Our state of being should not concern you," Uno said.

"It wouldn't if we were of stone hearts like you two," Leon said. "But we're not."

Lest nodded. "Besides, you said you were servants of the tower master. If you're going to confirm that I am, then you're working for me now and I'm going to worry about you both."

"Is that so?" Sano asked.

"It should be," Uno said. "That is our baseline instruction, to obey the master of the tower."

"But what of Master Darryl?"

"I do not know, but Master Lest is here absolutely and Master Darryl is here in uncertainty. And there is only one master of the tower."

"Then how are you two doing?" Lest asked again.

"We have been working out the statements Master Darryl gave us," Sano said.

"There is much in conflict and vagueness which does not make consistent sense," Uno said.

"Like Leon talks, huh?" Lest asked.

"Only when it's funny," Leon said, twitching his ears.

"Correct, his confusion is in jest," Sano said. Frey giggled at that, in part because it was so true.

"Master Darryl gives confusion in not explaining his statements clearly as you do," Uno said. "But he has said that only the master of the tower can enter."

"If you can get through the door enchantment, you must be the next master of the tower," Sano said.

"What should be done about the regulation of energy and the door inside?" Uno asked.

"I don't really know because I'm not clear on what's going on," Lest said. "Can we all get inside?"

"If that is your decision, the door may be unsealed from the inside," Uno said.

"We are aware of how to do that," Sano said.

"Good, then please come in and tell me how," Lest said, getting up and walking through the stone door without hesitation. The two foxes followed after him, mirroring each other's movements.

"He is lucky to get the loyalty of those two golems," Leon said, looking at the door settle back to stone. "If they've retained their powers, there's a lot more to them than it first seems."

"I'm just happy we can finally get inside," Frey said, bouncing a little on her feet. "I can't wait to read his journals and see what we've been missing."

"It might not be so pleasant," Leon said, finally getting to his feet. "As I said, I've been thinking on things, what I've found and what you've said. Like, if there was a spell the will of the world didn't want, the cost on it would be impossibly high."

She nodded. "Right, like how high skill crafts that you're not ready for will have a steep rune point price that you can't pay. In that case, you have to practice smaller crafts to see how the bigger one works piece by piece and build your skill levels."

Leon walked over to a point centered between the tower's paws, a few feet from the door. "Like that, but also, do you recall what the original form of Etherlink was? A blood sacrifice. I knew that, and I knew Misa badgered her father until he reworked it to a lesser cost. But even just before I became a guardian, Maria thought something was still off with it all and warned me so. Her letters even mention that perhaps she didn't know the full purpose behind Etherlink, or even this tower. And another thing..." he pointed to the door. "The earth rune spring was in there. I was put under enchantment right here, outside of its reach. But the other guardians were all placed in the center of the spring, or as close as they could get to it."

"You were still fused with the spring, though," Frey said, watching him. He seemed to be serious right now. "Reports from others confirmed that."

"But if the original cost of Etherlink was the death of a young adult with a strong connection to a god, what was the original purpose behind the spell?" Leon said, putting his fan to his chin. His tail swept from side to side slowly as he was thinking.

"The form I know creates a vein for chi between any two points by passing through the ether sea beyond the world," Frey said. "That's how it brings a vast quantity of fresh vibrant runes with it. For you and the other three, the vein followed the natural connection between your body and soul, which is why they had to be separated at the spring. There's a lot you can do with a flexible spell like that, even ways to mess yourself up. Lest said it was like a rope made of twisting cords together. Darryl said it was to bring rune power to Ventuswill and restore her to how she should be."

"That's what he said, but he could very well have been lying," Leon said.

She nodded. "Right. But the Harvest Goddess appeared when Lest placed the rune spheres and freed you, so that must be in accordance with the will of the world. Hopefully there are still materials there that explain what he was doing. It's just weird to think that he may have been doing something subversive. He was blessed as an earthmate in order to defeat Storgane and there's no records that show he lost that blessing. But then, we're having to deal with Storgane's ghost now, so obviously something didn't go as he's said publicly."

Leon made some movements with his fan, casting motions although he wasn't casting. "I had to use a potent sending prayer to send Darryl's soul on and he insisted that he'd not made any mistakes. Though I wonder, perhaps he never discovered something that you did."

"What are you talking about?" Frey asked.

He smirked. "That there are limits to one person's intelligence and talents, no matter how strong they may seem. He had no doubt in his work and blamed the rest of us for making things go wrong. But you were forced to confront a situation where you were at a loss for an answer early on in live. Even when you got an answer, you couldn't implement it alone. Perhaps being too intelligent and rarely getting called out made him blind to the mistakes he was making."

"I'm not that smart, just well trained with a large background of family research to start with," she said, smiling although she was embarrassed he was saying that.

"Better know one self for a fool than to believe one self as a wise man," Leon said. Then he looked at the door and frowned. "I thought they were just unsealing the door."

"Me too," Frey said, turned to the door and pushing it. It was still solid and unmoving. "I hope he's okay. It's not like we're identical twins that can sense each other fully."

"I'm glad because that'd be kind of freaky to deal with in a girlfriend," Leon said, coming to her side. "Anyhow, if we have a moment..."

"They could open the door at any moment," she said when he put his arm around her shoulder.

"I suppose I just won't do anything freaky out here with you," he said, putting his head against her. "But you know, I never did tell you the very beginning of the story between me and Maria. I heard a most delightful superstition the other day from Kiel about how people believed you could find blessings with your lover or your family if you came here and wrote your names on the tower. Mostly the paws or the door here as you can see if you look close. I think we inadvertently caused that when we were kids. I was eleven and she was six. See, up there?"

She looked up where he was pointing with his fan, near the top of the door where a pair of names could be seen. Most people wouldn't have guessed it said 'Maria' and 'Leon' since it was in Ath script. Seeing that, she blinked. "How did you two get your names way up there if you were kids?'

"That's what you ask?" Leon asked, barely holding in a laugh at that. She got him to let it out when she poked him in the forehead. "All right, all right... there was some scaffolding against the door because Darryl was in the process of writing out his message, so we got up there to write our names in this alphabet I was helping her learn. And that old wizard was really mad, like somebody had stuck a bee hive in his privy. Funny thing was, he didn't even notice until he had his inscription done and the scaffolding moved elsewhere, so he never removed the names."

"And so the graffiti stayed and spread through twelve centuries," Frey said solemnly, looking over at the paw on her right. As he said, there were names etched all over it. "Funny that they did it even with the danger."

"That may have made it seem more real." Leon sighed, but so quietly she wouldn't have heard if he wasn't right there next to her. "Seems strange to me that this superstition persisted in spite of what happened between us. That was all that I remembered of that incident for years, just something silly we'd done together. But then while I was preparing to become a guardian, she reminded me that there was more to that memory."

"That was when she thought you'd both be married?" she asked, remembering that part of it.

He nodded. "Yes, that. See, she was quite a crybaby at that age, breaking out in tears over just about everything. But we were the only kids in our village, about halfway between here and where Selphia is now, so we ended up spending a lot of time together. On that day we were here, apparently I told her that if she'd stop crying, I'd do what she asked of me. She asked if I'd marry her and being the dumb boy I was, I said I would and we wrote our names on the door as proof of the promise. While I promptly forgot about it, she held onto it so tightly that she really didn't cry after that day. Not even as I was leaving to never return to her again, not until over fifty years later when some jerk named James pointed out that she's lost sight of what she'd become due to it."

"That's quite a long time to hang onto a promise made when you were six," Frey said.

"And not able to fully understand what you were promising," Leon said. "But then in between that day and the last day I spent awake in that era, there was another time... I was seventeen and she was twelve. We'd not talked about that promise, obviously, but I dragged her out of town often to wander around the land when I had a free day from my studies. However, one time we went much further than usual when we ran off with Ven to see the world."

"I remember that," she said. "There's lots of stories about the three of you in other parts of Norad."

He tightened his grip briefly, though it seemed he was looking for reassurance himself. "I've read them, but many miss the most important part of it, and the worst of it. Bringing Ven out of her land weakened her greatly and she got sick when we reached the ocean. She nearly died on the way back no matter what we did, even carrying her by cart so she could keep resting. And, that whole trip had been my idea. Maria was my little sister, but Ven was my best friend and I was nearly responsible for her death."

"You couldn't have realized it or you wouldn't have gone," Frey said, putting her arm around him. Though, what was Lest up to? She worried about him briefly, but also hoped he'd stay inside for a bit longer now that Leon was talking about this.

"I've started to forgive myself of that," Leon said. "Back then, it started an insidious thought in me that I deserved to suffer for that careless mistake. I wasn't about to offer myself as a blood sacrifice, but once Darryl and Misa said they had Etherlink in form of an enchanted slumber, I was drawn to it immediately to pay off my guilt. But then Maria, probably hoping that I'd stay with her, brought up the old promise and added fuel to the fire. I became a guardian with a powerful feeling in my heart that I should suffer and Storgane took that to tear me apart."

Frey wasn't sure what to say, or if she should say anything. This was more of Lest's area of expertise, navigating through someone else's emotions and past in trying to support them. But of what she knew, Leon really was being serious this time and he wasn't going to turn it into a prank last second in self-defense (what Lest said Leon was doing at times). She decided to let him talk this out unless he specifically asked her about something.

"That's why I told you on that first date that you could never have my heart. I was still thinking that I was far too lucky in being with you and I didn't deserve to be happy with anyone else. If I made Maria keep her promise until she grew old and died alone still working to free me, then I'd ruined her. I was actually thinking around that time that if Selphia didn't turn out to be a dream, I would take my training as a priest another step further and take a vow of celibacy to be alone for life as well. Although, I'm sure Ven would never agree to that kind of service. But there's other gods out there who would require it." Then he poked her in the forehead, though not with the fan this time. "Then you had to be there and force me to face the truth of the matter, on several occasions. I finally got the nerve to tell that insidious thought that no, I don't need to suffer any longer for mistakes made by my foolishness."

"Then can I have your heart now?" Frey asked, unable to resist the playful question.

"I'm still thinking over that," he said, his attitude shifting back to joking around. But that was fine. He'd spoken his mind and heart. "But you are the strongest contender. Did you want me to come help you search out those other fairies?"

That had slipped her mind in all that had gone on, but she brightened at the idea. "Sure, that'd be fun and with you along, I won't have to deal with as much nagging from over-protective servants."

Leon grinned. "Well then we may have to get in trouble..." his joking quickly ended as he looked at the door. "What is taking him so long?"

"Yeah, unsealing shouldn't take him long," she said, going to the door and thumping on it with her fist. "Lest! Are you going to let us in or not?"

She was answered by the crash of thunder and sudden hail. Frey jumped right to the door trying to get some shelter from the falling ice while Leon came to her side protectively. "Is this his doing?" he asked.

"Yeah, but I haven't seen a reaction like this," she said.

Then the door was pulled inward, nearly making them fall over. The blue glint of Uno's scarf appeared as it opened. "Please, it is a problem," she said, hopping back to wait as the door fully opened.

"What happened?" Frey asked, coming in as soon as she could. There was a tiny stone room inside, just enough for the open door, a staircase down, and a door to another room.

"Master Darryl met us inside," Uno said, going to the stairs. "It appeared civil, but has turned to conflict. Master Lest is in trouble, so I thought it was appropriate to bring help."

At least they were listening to Lest over Darryl, Frey thought. But Leon was thinking something else as they hurried down the stairs. "I thought I sent him to the forest."

"Rune Prana is supposed to be a road into the forest," Frey said. "Is it complete enough that he can come back through it as a ghost?'

"It would seem so," Uno said.

"****, if he can come back that way, then Storgane probably came back that way too," Leon said. Which meant that with Rune Prana open, there was no way to be certain these ghosts would fully be out of the world.

Downstairs, they arrived in an old research lab. It was one open space, with a cot in one corner, a work table near that, a shielded corner for testing magic, and a few shelves of ancient books and scrolls. At the far end of the room, there was an ornate black doorway with a sheen like a monster gate in its frame. Lest was in the middle of the room trying to fight off a ghost of an old man, Sano at the former's side defending him. There were some magical chains trying to latch onto Lest, likely cast with their blood connection in mind or else he would have no trouble dissolving them. Drawing her swords out quickly, Frey cut through some of the chains in her reach to lead into an attack on Darryl. Leon cast a quick spell of protection over the three of them. While it didn't attach to Lest, he was able to rebound the energy into the ghost.

Darryl retreated to the doorway. "You'll want this power someday," he said, then escaped into the gate where they couldn't reach him.

"Is that the doorway into Rune Prana?" Frey asked.

"Yes, you should seal it so nothing can come in or out until we're ready," Lest said. Where his chi lines usually showed up, there were pink lines running along his skin as evidence of some strong magical damage.

She went over to the doorway and examined it. "Right. Fortunately it looks like this doorway was crafted to easily hold seals. He must have had it unsealed when he died and the tower sealed itself shut." That would explain all the leakage of corrupt runes. She touched the frame to work on it, letting its structure guide her magic.

"You all right?" Leon asked, staying near Lest.

"I feel terrible, to be honest," he said, going over to a bench by the worktable to sit down. "Thanks for coming in; I don't think I could have driven him off even with these two fighting for me."

Sano and Uno sat down near Lest to keep an eye on him. "We concluded that we can not satisfactorily serve a dead master," Sano said.

"We will protect you even if other courses must be taken if we are not sufficient," Uno added.

"I think most of the town would want to kill us if we let something harm him," Leon said to the foxes. "Besides, you summoned a nasty hail storm outside and no way were we going to stay there."

"Sorry, I got knocked into Rune Prana briefly," Lest said, his voice trailing off at the thought.

"If you feel bad, you can tell us about it later," Frey said, glancing over at him. Other than the pink lines, he didn't seem that badly off. Probably a healing potion could make him feel better. "I'll get you back into town before I get my door gate to bring this stuff back to my library."

"She can get down here now that the ground door is unlocked, right?" Lest asked the two foxes.

"One of us should be here to observe visitors, but yes, it is open to anyone," Sano said.

"I'm letting her take the stuff here and study it, so cooperate with her too," Lest said.

After getting Lest to the clinic to be checked out, Frey returned to the tower with Leon and Sano. Sano quietly observed, occasionally answering questions whether directed at him or not. Leon claimed he just wanted to see how her door gate worked in person, but he helped transfer the books and scrolls into the storage cave, then from there to her library in the castle basement. Being research journals, most of them had no title, just dates of when the journal was in use. Still, the mystery of what they could say was fascinating enough. Then there were the scrolls which mostly were not Darryl's work. They were a collection of documents, many of which were old in his time. Frey had to set up a new protected bookshelf to keep them preserved until she or someone else had the time to copy them down so the information they held weren't lost.

She was shutting her gate in its protective bottle when Clorica came into the library. "You really should come to the clinic right away," she said in concern. "Lest got worse after a little while."

"What?" Frey asked, alarmed at the news. It hadn't seemed that bad. "Why didn't you get me sooner?"

"Let's go," Clorica said, heading out of the library. As they were heading upstairs, she said, "I'm sorry, but Jones asked me to hold off. Something about it being purely magical damage and he needed everyone in the clinic to keep as calm as possible due to Lest's empathy. He only let me come now because he's stable enough that it won't interfere with the damage. Dolce even had to leave."

"Dolce did?" Leon asked.

Clorica shook her head. "I don't know why, but she was pretty upset. And I fell asleep somehow, so they left me there until he asked me to get you."

Outside the clinic, Dolce was leaning against one of the flower boxes along the road with Pico sitting by her trying to get her to talk. Leon stayed out with her while Clorica brought Frey into the clinic. Lest was in back with Jones, sitting up in the patient bed and leaning against the headboard. Without his jacket now, she could clearly see that the pink lines had turned red and swollen on his arms. His neck and face looked pink like he had a healing rash. Uno was lying on the floor nearby, watching quietly.

"That looks a lot worse than when I last saw you," Frey said. "Sorry I didn't realize it was so bad."

"It's okay, I didn't think it was this bad either," Lest said, sounding tired. "I just thought it was my nerves getting to me."

"At least you brought him here first," Jones said. "Although I don't blame you for missing this. It's not something I would expect from an earthmate. His body got overloaded with a powerful magic, which is why the marks appear in the patterns they do."

That was also something she didn't expect to hear. "What are you talking about? He's been inside the rune springs while they were empowered, which is a significant amount of magical force moving in one location. If that didn't trouble him, what would?"

"Like I said, it was Rune Prana," Lest said.

"What do you mean by that?" Jones asked.

"It's a road built from this world deep into the ether sea to reach the Forest of Beginnings, in a way that mortal beings could pass through," Frey said. "We don't know much about it, since we literally just got a bunch of writings from the man who built it."

Lest nodded. "It's not completed, but there's quite a lot of structure built. It's just, when I was there, I felt a large amount of rune power passing through me. Something about it gave me the creeps, as it didn't feel right. Then there was a moment of, well, terror I guess. It's hard to say what it was..."

"How did you get into Rune Prana?" Frey said. "You were in there longer than we expected for just unsealing the door, but not that long."

"I was trying to get Darryl to tell me how to unseal the door, but he kept talking about his masterpiece in Rune Prana and how it needed one last step to make the full connection. He said he could teach me a spell needed to travel the road safely and complete it. I tried to avoid making him angry by asking him why he was building it, but he kept insisting on the spell until I refused directly. Then he pushed me in. For a little bit, it was like my dream of the ether sea. But then, it... well it's the kind of feeling when you're looking at the night sky reflected in a pond and you can tell something's off but not what. And then the pond blinks and you realize you're standing next to the eye of some titanic creature. Like that, only not really."

"Like that but not really?" Frey asked, sitting down on the bed across from him.

Lest shivered and the windows rattled to some wind. "Sorry, I don't know how else to describe it. It's nothing like I expected when you were talking about it being a road through the ether sea. Fortunately the door was right there and I ran out, only to get attacked by Darryl. He'd given up on convincing me and was going to take my body from me by force so that he could finish the road. I was already shaken up and Darryl's a far better mage than I'll probably ever be, so it's great that Uno went to get you both."

"Going into the ether sea's depths physically could kill you in seconds," Jones said. "What structure was there probably kept you alive, but it's far too dangerous to take on a prospect of trying to finish it."

"I know, that's why I had Frey seal it as soon as Darryl's ghost was gone," Lest said.

"We were planning to collapse the road if we can," Frey said. "Or closing the door on this end. Don't worry, I built a golem specifically to scout out Rune Prana to figure our safest way of doing so."

"There's still a lot to be done," Lest said.

"Yeah, but we can get it done," Frey said with a smile. Although she did worry that this was going to end up another problem that could take generations to solve, even for earthmates.


A/N: While this section is a bunch of mini-arcs, there are still parts like this that pertain to the main plot. Also, I would have liked to be able to tame Sano and Uno, but you can't. Probably because they're statues and don't move. They look awesome, though.

A bit off-subject, but I finally completed gathering all the anime clips in this game without using a harem to get everyone's proposal clips. Took a long time and was a bit tedious, but that means this is one of the few games that I've completed a hundred percent rather than just beat and skipped optional things. Seeing all the events was fun, at least. Aside from getting Dylas' proposal event, the last game event I had to find was one for Doug when his LP is high but you aren't dating anyone. Though that made me feel kind of bad when I saw it and then immediately went to confess to Dylas, heh.