Chapter 41: Sight Seeing
As predicted, Yuri barely slept the rest of the night. He walked downstairs to see that Veal seemed to be sound asleep where Yuri had left him. It was a bit of a relief to see that he was still sleeping. Raven however was struggling to stay awake.
"How's our prisoner, old man?" Yuri asked and made sure that his voice wasn't load enough to wake Veal.
"He hadn't moved at all since I started watching him," Raven said with a yawn. "Think he's asleep?"
"If he's just a soul, would he really need to sleep?" Yuri questioned. "Doesn't need to eat, so…"
Raven just shrugged. "Honestly don't really care if that is the case," he said and let out another loud yawn. "Man, what I wouldn't give to have just a few hours of sleep."
"You even went to bed before anyone else," Yuri just commented.
"Yeah, well, let's just say that my past wouldn't let me sleep," Raven muttered. Yuri was taken aback by what he said. He rarely ever said anything so serious or spoke about the past. Yuri was about to apologize for making light of his situation when the old man quickly dismissed it. "Don't worry about it," Raven muttered.
The old man's gaze changed to look over at Veal who was still sound asleep. "At least he seems to be able to sleep," Raven commented.
"We need to talk more about that subject," Yuri reminded him even though Raven was fully aware of that.
"I know," he replied.
They could hear movement from upstairs as the rest of their group was waking up. So Yuri decided to volunteer for making breakfast in case Flynn was the first one down and felt it was his turn to prepare a meal.
It would have to be a very simple meal since they didn't have much outside of nonperishable ingredients. Yuri had to get a little creative and made sure to set aside something simple for Veal. Thankfully Karol was the first one down and Flynn didn't emerge until Yuri was practically done with cooking.
Eventually everyone was down stairs and enjoying a warm decent meal. There wasn't much talking going on like there usually was. All of them seemed to have gotten the bare minimum of sleep or none at all. Most of them were still thinking about the day before. Yuri really wished for more chatter so he wouldn't think about the illusions he saw.
It was Karol who finally brought up what they should do next. "So what's our plan for saving the world again?"
"I think our top concern at the moment is to stop Nightwood and her knights," Yuri suggested. "She's the main reason the mana cannon was even created in the first place, right?"
"Well everyone is wanting a push in technology advancement to replace the blastia," Rita pointed out. "There is a lot of pressure on the mages and scientist to make some progress soon. This is going to go beyond stopping Nightwood."
"But if Ratatosk's new management system works then there won't be a huge need to replicate the barriers," Ren pointed out. "Monsters won't have a need to go wild or go near cities."
"Good luck trying to convince people of that," Raven commented. "Without the grantee that monsters won't enter cities, people won't be satisfied with no defense. The barriers spoiled us. I even heard the spirit's promise, but I don't know if that will really put me at ease."
"I think we can all at least agree that Nightwood is planning something bad," Flynn told them.
Yuri looked back at Reaper who was still hadn't moved. "It's too bad our prisoner isn't able to give us much information," Yuri commented.
There was no response from the knight. Yuri thought it was strange the knight hadn't moved once since they went to sleep the night before or said a word. He didn't have a body, but could Reaper really go that long without moving and speaking?
"You couldn't even give us a guess as to what Nightwood is planning? Surely you overheard something?" Flynn tried asking the knight.
Again, there was no response. Yuri was starting to get more annoyed with the knight then he already was. And he didn't think that was possible at this point. He got up from the table and walked over to Reaper. "Not in the mood to talk this morning," Yuri said and taped on the armor's shoulder. "It's not like you need to-"
But he didn't finish because Reaper's armored body toppled to the ground like any empty suit would. The helmet fell off and bounced a bit on the floor. Reaper didn't move. It was like this was just a regular suit of armor. "Hey Reaper," Yuri shouted as he tightened his grip on his sword. The thought that this might be a trap did cross his mind. What had Yuri really wonder was if Reaper's soul was even still in the armor. Could he move his soul like that? It wasn't like Yuri could check to see if his soul was still in the armor.
The others noticed what was going on and were watching cautiously. They were probably thinking the same thing Yuri was. Some had even jumped when they heard the armor crash to the floor. Flynn and Judith both got up with the intention of fighting if it came to that.
Suddenly the armor started moving and everyone jumped. The sounds of someone trying to move with an injury came out of the suit of armor. "W-where am I?" Reaper's voice suddenly asked.
"You're in Dahngrest, remember? We arrived last night," Yuri answered him without lowering his guard.
"Dahngrest? Why am I…" Reaper seemed to be taking in is surroundings and stop to look at Yuri (it was hard to tell since he didn't have his helmet on). "Yuri…" Reaper's arms reached up like he was going to touch his helmet, but soon realized that he didn't have his head.
Flynn retrieved the helmet and handed it to him. "Is everything alright? You seemed to have passed out," the commandant asked. Although Yuri wasn't sure how that was possible for a soul.
Reaper put his helmet back on. "I suppose that's what happened to me," he answered numbly. "My soul must be trying to pass on."
"Does that happen a lot?" Estelle suddenly asked. It would be a pain if this happened again. Especially at inconvenient times. None of them would want to carry a heavy suit of armor.
"It's been happening more frequently in recent years," Reaper told them sounding like he was tired. "It's unnatural for a soul to be in a body it doesn't belong to. Plus I've lingered in this world for far too long. My soul is just trying to return to the way things are supposed to be."
"Do you not want to pass on?" Judith asked this time.
"It's not a question of want. I just don't really know how to. Nightwood's seal keeps me bound to this body. So it feels like I'm being chipped away when this happens. I sometimes even forget who I am at times. There have even been times when I've forgotten about my family and being Reaper is the only thing left," Reaper answered sadly.
"So basically it's only a matter of time before your soul completely disappears, am I right?" Yuri guessed.
"It's likely," Reaper told them. "Then what's left will turn into a monster."
"Making you even more dangerous to us," Yuri finished. If Reaper lost his will and personality, then all that would be left is some deadly monsters who would be likely to attack them.
There was brief moment when Reaper didn't say anything and Yuri though he was blacking out again. But the armored body replied, "Yes."
"Think we should go ahead and find a way to release his soul?" Raven asked everyone.
It was something they needed to consider. Veal even asked about another course of action they could take. "Is there nothing else we can do for him?"
It was Reaper who gave them that answer. "I died a long time ago. Passing on is the only good option. I am your prisoner, so you can do whatever you want to me. I only ask that I be allowed to help you defeat Nightwood now that I have my freewill. But if you think it's too dangerous to keep me around, then I won't offer any resistance."
Deep down, Yuri could understand what Reaper was probably feeling. He remembered that Reaper had wanted to kill Alexei for revenge and he never got it. Now he wanted to get back at Nightwood. Even though Yuri didn't like or trust Reaper, he still felt he should let Reaper have this. "It's not like we know how to release your soul. Guess until we figure that out, we're stuck with you," Yuri said.
"Thank you," Reaper said.
Yuri didn't feel that should be something to thank. He turned his back to Reaper to return to the bench with everyone else. "If you start to look like a threat we won't think twice about it," Yuri warned.
"As it should be when you're dealing with someone like me," Reaper surprisingly said. It was surprising to hear how agreeable he had been in all of this. But he guessed when you're nothing but a soul in a suit of armor you didn't get much choice.
"So what's our next move boss?" Raven asked to get back to their more pressing issues.
Before Yuri could even think about what they should do, Judith made a suggestion. "Why don't we take the day to figure that out?"
"Basically you're asking for a day off?" Yuri clarified.
"Kind of," Judith told them. "We can still try to gather information in the city. But we should probably take this day to not worry about getting anywhere in a great hurry."
She did make a good point. Seems like they had done nothing but hurry from point A to point B with little rest in-between since they started this journey. At this point, they didn't know what they should do. Plus some of them probably still needed some time to recover from yesterday. Yuri would be lying if he said he didn't want some time to pretend nothing was wrong. Slowing down would probably do everyone some good.
"That's not a bad idea," Flynn agreed. "I could use the time to send a report about what happened to Sodia and His Highness Ioder."
"At least the Empire could start implementing new laws and regulations to keep magitech from getting out of hand," Rita began to speculate.
"I'll even go talk to Harry about that topic for the Union's side," Raven volunteered.
Everyone was thinking of long term solutions to the problem. Yuri could only think of stopping Nightwood. Even if she was gone, they still had a huge problem in their hands. It made him more grateful that he was with the group. It reminded him that he couldn't do this by himself.
Karol jumped up. "Oh, I have a friend who's in a guild that specializes in writing about current events. I could ask him if he's heard anything strange." Yuri found himself smirking at Karol's active attitude. Then the young guild leader looked over at Veal and said, "Why don't you come with me Veal, I can show you around Dahngrest. You've never been here before, right?"
Veal seemed startled by this and replied, "I haven't, but I feel it would be of more use communicating with the spirits and seeing if they know anything that could help us find out what Nightwood is up to."
"Why don't you let me worry about the spirits?" Verius suggested. "You're limited to the four you made a pact with, but I can converse with all of them. We'll find something out with all of us talking."
"Come on Veal. Go take in the sights and have some fun for once," Raven told the krityan.
"It's settle then," Karol declared quickly like he was afraid Veal would change his mind. "Let's go Veal," Karol said as he grabbed Veal's arm and practically dragged a bewildered Veal out of their base.
"Just be back by dinner time," Yuri shouted out after them and hoped that they would hear. Tonight they would go over what they find and figure out what to do next.
Verius wasn't far behind them. He and Ren shared a brief conversation before the smaller spirit disappeared to talk with the spirits. Then Ren got up and was about to leave too.
"Where do you think you're going," Rita asked.
Ren shrugged her shoulders. "I'm going to do some information gathering myself," she answered.
Estelle clapped her hands together and said, "Oh, I'll come with you and help with what I can."
Ren looked like she was about to object when Judith suddenly said, "Us girls should go together. It could be fun."
Both Rita and Ren said, "Really?" at the same time. Thus Judith and Estelle started pushing Ren and Rita out of the base to do whatever it was they were going to do. They weren't going to take no for an answer. But Yuri was glad to see that the they all seemed to be in a lighter mood.
That just left Yuri with Flynn, Raven, Repede, and Reaper. Raven knew exactly what Yuri was wanting to talk about. The old man's mood changed from upbeat to serious. "So what else do you want to know about?"
"Veal told me that the reason he and his brother were being chased by the knights was because they thought they stole some research, does it ring any bells?" Yuri asked.
Raven took in a deep breath and put his hand over his face. "Yeah," he muttered. "It was my first mission under the name of Schwann. My superior officer at the time ordered me to disarm the boy and…well you know what happened." Raven seemed to have fought to keep his voice from breaking.
"Wait, so what Veal said about Captain Schwann is true?" Flynn asked.
"Yeah," Raven muttered. "But we're trying to make sense of this since the boy I killed was over ten years ago and the boy would have been older than Veal was. No way it was his twin."
Yuri was getting a little worried about how the old man seemed to be getting used to talking about this. But they now had someone who had worked with Vossler and possibly knew more about Veal when he was in the lifeless state. "What do you know about Veal?" Yuri suddenly asked asked the bodiless knight.
"That is an odd question you ask," Reaper said instead of answering. He probably did think it was strange that they were talking about a krityan child rather than Nightwood.
"Just answer it," Raven snapped. He probably wanted answers more than anyone else.
The armor just shrugged. "I'm afraid it's not much. I just know that he was Vossler's test subject for a few years. If I had to guess, he wanted him to borrow power from spirits for the purpose of the mana cannon."
"But where did Vossler get Veal from?" When was what Yuri really wanted to ask.
"I don't know," he answered and it made Yuri want to kick the armor in frustration. "I was never ordered to keep tabs on him. So I never paid much mind to him."
"How about this question," Flynn started. "When was the first time you saw Veal?"
"Asking me that won't help you much," Reaper told them. "My memories aren't that reliable."
"You have got to be kidding me, Yuri muttered. "Is your soul an old man's or something?"
"When you said it feels like your soul is chipping away, does it also affect your memories?" Flynn asked catching on to something Yuri and Raven didn't. Although it would explain what the knight seemed to be so confused when he came to.
"There have been times when I'm not sure who I am and wonder if these memories from when I was alive are really mine," Reaper admitted. "Sorry, but I wouldn't be the most reliable person to ask. All I can say is that one day the krityan just showed up and he was always with Vossler since, but I can't recall when the first time I saw him."
Yuri really had to fight the urge not to kick Reaper's armor, mainly because it wouldn't do anything to Reaper and he could let his frustration out on him. Instead he just kicked wall. "Damn it, of out of all the Holy Knights, we probably got the most useless one," he complained. They had barely learned anything about Nightwood or her plans. They only thing they learned was that Reaper had more issues than they thought. Nothing helpful at all other than for now they wouldn't have to fight him.
There was a brief moment of silence before Reaper broke it by saying, "You're probably right."
/~/~/
"So this is your hometown," Veal commented as they were heading to one of Karol's friends. The young krityan kept looking around and Karol felt like he would need to keep an eye on him so he wouldn't get lost.
It had been a long time since Karol had hung out with anyone younger than him. He kind of liked that he was no longer the youngest member of the group. Maybe Veal would look up to him like he did with Yuri and a little bit with Raven. But he made Veal come with him now because he was afraid of what would happen if Veal was left with Raven for too long. He was scared that Veal would want to kill Raven if he found out if he was Schwann. Karol was also scared to learn that Raven really killed Veal's brother. He really wished that wasn't the case. He had asked Yuri about it and he had said he and Raven would figure it out. Karol really wanted to talk to Raven but he never really had to chance. Plus Raven always looked like he didn't want to talk about, so how could Karol bring it up.?
Karol looked back at Veal and put on a big smile." Yep, pretty great, huh?"
Veal had the look that told Karol he really wasn't too impressed. But he replied honestly, "It seems to fit you." Karol suppose he would take that. At least it was better than Yuri's first impression. Veal seemed to sense what Karol was feeling, because he quickly added, "I guess I'm just not a fan of big cities."
"Then what kind of place would you prefer to live?"
"I'm not really sure. It's not something I've really thought about lately."
"Then what about the place you grew up? Didn't you like that?"
The situation suddenly became uncomfortable like it did when Schwann was brought up. "I suppose I wouldn't mind going home. But it wouldn't be the same without Abel and just so much time as passed."
Karol's head dropped. He had meant the conversations to be fun, he had no idea that talking about home would have brought up painful memories. Karol maybe should have guessed that since Veal had never asked once about going home.
Once again Veal noticed the mood Karol was in and begin to apologize. "I'm sorry. I've really become a downer, haven't I?"
"Don't worry about it Veal," Karol quickly told him. "Feel what you want to feel. We're all just glad you're awake now."
Veal nodded and didn't say another word. Karol was debating if he should start a completely different conversation with Veal. He didn't like traveling in silence.
But then he heard someone call his name it made Karol stop because he recognized the voice. He quickly turned around and sure enough Nan was just a few steps away. Karol's smile grew when he saw the huntress. "Nan," he called back and quickly approached her. "How have you and the other Hunting Blades been?"
Nan shrugged. "Same as usual, there is never a short supply of monster hunts. I can't even remember the last time I teamed up with master or the boss," she told him. She looked like she just got back from a job. Her clothes had a few rips and her boomerang blade looked like it needed cleaning. She must have just eliminated a monster near the city. Surprisingly, she didn't look tired in the least. She's really moved up to being one of the top hunting blade members. "So what about you? Still looking for people's pets?"
"Hey that was only one time," Karol quickly defended. He hadn't been trilled in taking that as a guild job but it was hard to say no to a crying little girl. "We've had a lot of monster hunts and material gathering jobs too."
"I suppose you're starting to make a decent guild," she commented and Karol would take that as a complement since they were few and far in-between with her. She had gotten on him for the kind of jobs he had taken. She also hadn't been impressed with their base. For some reason, that made Karol all the more determined to impress her. "So are you on a job now to return a lost kid to his parents?"
At first Karol wasn't sure what she was talking about until he remembered that Veal was with him. Looking at Veal, he did kind of look like a lost kid. "No, he's actually traveling with us for now," Karol told her. "Veal, this is my friend Nan."
Veal bowed to Nan and said, "It's nice to meet you miss."
It was rare to find someone in Dahngrest with manners like Veal. So in this setting, it was a little startling. Nan wasn't sure how to respond to that. So she only said after noticing the chakrams on Veal's belt, "So do you know how to fight or are those for looks?"
Karol answered for Veal since the young krityan was taking too long trying to figure out what Nan was talking about. "Yeah, he's a pretty good fighter for his age." Karol realized that he sounded like a proud parent saying that.
"You certainly have a knack for finding the strangest people to travel with," Nan said. What were the odds of finding two krityans willing to fight? Karol honestly hadn't thought about that much since traveling with Judith made it seem normal. Their whole group was basically made up of some of the strangest people. "But I guess it suits you," Nan quickly added. It wasn't meant in an insulting way. It was more of an endearing sentiment from Nan. And Karol was glad to hear it from her.
"Yeah, I wouldn't have it any other way," Karol said.
Suddenly Karol felt like someone had just tackled him and nearly knocked him over. But he recovered quickly and saw that a small girl with blonde pigtails had run into him. She looked up at Karol and he saw that her eyes were full of tears.
Veal was the first one to ask the girl, "Are you okay?"
The little girl wiped her eyes but there was still plenty of tears left. "My-my brother," the girl whimpered. "He's stuck an-and he's really scared."
"Sounds like a job for Brave Vesperia," Nan commented as she began walking away.
"Hey Nan," Karol started say. He had hoped to talk with her longer.
Without looking back, Nan reminded him, "You still have a long way to go to make your guild a proper one. Isn't that what you told me last time?"
She always had a brash way of setting him straight. "Yeah," Karol agreed. "But you better not slack off either. I'd hate to hear you complain if I beat you one of these days."
"As if," she said before she left.
"See you next time then," Karol said to himself before turning his attention back to the girl. Veal was doing what he could to try and stop the girl from crying. It was a little odd since Veal was slightly shorter than the girl. "So where is your brother at?"
The girl pointed further into the city. "Over there," she said between chocked sobs.
"Okay, just led us and we'll do what we can," Karol reassured her.
Veal looked concerned. "Karol, don't you think we should get Mr. Yuri or someone?"
But Karol shook his head. "We should be able to handle it ourselves. I'd be a pretty worthless boss if I couldn't help a kid."
"I see," Veal said and nodded. "I'll offer what assistance I can."
"Hurry, he's this way," the little girl called out and started running to where her brother was.
"Hold on," Karol yelled as he and Veal quickly tried to catch up.
The girl definitely knew how to move around the city. She didn't run into anyone. She must have been like Karol and spent her whole life here in Dahngrest. But Karol didn't spend too much time thinking about that since he was focused on not losing her or Veal.
They went past Union HQ and into more the residential part of the city. The little girl then took a sharp left turn between two buildings. One looked rather abandoned while the surrounding buildings didn't look much better. She had led them down an ally with a dead end. Her back was to them.
"Where is your brother?" Karol hesitantly asked. He was starting to understand what was going on. Karol had a hand on his weapon's handle just in case.
The little girl turned around and had a smile with dry eyes to give them. "Right behind you of course," she said with a laugh at the end.
Karol was about to spin around when his body suddenly went numb and he couldn't feel anything. His legs couldn't support his weight and he collapsed to the ground. He tried to move his arms but couldn't. He couldn't move anything and that sent waves of terror through him.
"Karol," he heard Veal shout. Karol couldn't even move his head to look. Veal came into his line of sight and bent next to Karol. He reached so something that was on Karol and he brought back a needle as big as his finger. It was then that Karol noticed there was another blond kid at the end of the ally. He had more of those needles in his hand and looked like he was about to throw them.
Karol tried to warn Veal but he also could seem to get his vocal cords to work. It would have been too late if he could have because soon the needles ended up in Veal's arm. But the krityan only flinched and pulled out his chakrams which seemed to frighten the needle thrower. "Why isn't the paralysis working on him?" the blond boy asked out loud.
Before Veal had a chance to attack, another seemed to fall from the sky and struck Veal in the head with a sturdy stick. And Veal went down cold. "V-Veal…" Karol managed to say very quietly.
The boy who knocked Veal out had red hair and he threw his stick on the ground. "We should have just knocked both of them out instead of wasting our poison on them," the red headed boy complained.
Suddenly the girl they had followed appeared in his vision and she shoved the red headed boy. "Owen you idiot. What if you bashed that kid's head in. If one of them dies this isn't going to end well for us," she scolded.
The red head named Owen just shrugged his shoulders. "He's still breathing, isn't he," he said with no doubts that he may have killed Veal. Karol tried to look over at Veal but he couldn't see his head. For all he knew Veal could be bleeding and slowly dying. Why? Why couldn't Karol have noticed something wrong sooner? Why didn't he just listen to Veal, he probably knew something was wrong. There was no telling what these kids were going to do to them. Were they going to harvest their organs or something? He was pretty sure Raven said there was a black market for those things.
There were more kids coming down the alleyway. They seemed younger than the ones that attacked them but it still made Karol fear them more. "H-help-" Karol started to weakly yell when someone roughly grabbed his head and covered his mouth. Karol still had no feeling and couldn't move his mouth or head to try and bite the hand that covered his mouth.
"Let's just hurry up and get them to big bro before someone notices them," Karol heard Owen say.
The kids were moving closer and he was pretty sure he was being dragged off somewhere.
Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. Someone please help! Karol wanted to shout. But he couldn't.
