Sleeping on the ground of the Riverlands was only marginally less comfortable than the beds of Sunshade's dancer dormitory, Primrose found. She had crashed nearly immediately after her night shift ended as far as guarding the group was concerned, and every little string that had been holding her together somehow came unwound.
Her dreams had played back the events of her father's death, a pain that she was all too familiar with, but this time, Yusufa's murder accompanied such a string of events, and Primrose woke up with the taste of bile at the back of her throat. When she looked down to her hands, she could have sworn that she saw the outline of crimson. She had washed her skin a dozen times at least, but that did little to get rid of the phantom sensation that came with blood spreading across her flesh.
Primrose had changed into a different copy of her regular red dancer's outfit, vowing that she was going to find something a bit less revealing as soon as they arrived in a new town. Sunshade scarcely had any clothing available that wasn't as sexualized as it got, and Primrose needed a break from that. Her charms were her greatest boon, but for a few moments, she wanted to be free of her scathing facade so that she could grieve for what had been lost.
Primrose's mind was both beautifully empty and all too full as Clearbrook came into view. Tressa was the first to notice that a town had appeared on the horizon, and she let out a hopeful gasp as she gripped tightly to the straps of her bag. When she started dashing a bit faster down the path, Primrose had followed. The back of her mind screamed that she had to protect Tressa with everything she had.
You don't want to lose anyone else.
Clearbrook was smaller than its silhouette had made it seem, Primrose had to admit. The buildings of the town were less than two dozen in number, and the town was a sad shadow of Sunshade in terms of size. In a way though, that was refreshing to Primrose. The gentle whisper of the wind and the sway of the grass was just what she needed: a break.
"I'm certain that we will be able to acquire camping gear here," Cyrus murmured, and Primrose nodded her agreement. Yes. Good. Keep talking. The back of her mind felt like a knot, and her job was to stay as far ahead of the tangle as possible. The second that she allowed her act to slip, the moment that her foot fell out of place, everything was going to fall apart.
She couldn't think about the fact that Yusufa had been alive this time the day before. She couldn't think about the fact that she had murdered Helgenish and enjoyed it the whole way through. She couldn't think about the fact that she had left the dancers of Sunshade behind and undoubtedly thrown the town into disarray. All that mattered was the group of people at her side and the path that was stretching in front of her. Stillsnow awaited, and when she arrived, that surge was going to return. She was going to kill the man of the crow, and nobody was going to get in her way if they knew what was good for them.
Tressa started to hum to herself as she walked deeper into the town. She admired the stores that sold various items, and a wide grin spread across her face when she found a store that sold weapons to its customers. "Hey, Olberic! We can get you another spear here!" she cried out, waving him over dramatically.
Olberic nodded to himself and followed Tressa over in the direction of the store. Primrose eyed the lance that Olberic had been using throughout their past few battles. It was undoubtedly in the cut of a brigand, and Primrose had to admit that she would have likely wondered why Olberic, noble and proud, would ever stoop to the lows of wielding such a weapon had she stopped to think about it. Instead, she had been too concentrated on everything that had happened in the span of the past day.
No. Stop. Out of the knot. Look forward like you always do.
Primrose watched the path Tressa and Olberic were following to the store's entrance. She saw that a person was about to walk free of the door, and she let out a gasp before making to cry out that Tressa was going to run into the newcomer if she wasn't careful.
Unfortunately, Primrose was too late, and when the door swung open, Tressa's nose collided roughly with the wood, barely managing to miss the glass. She let out a strangled yelp of surprise and took a few steps back, staggering into Olberic's waiting arms. Ophilia cried out Tressa's name and dashed closer to her before summoning the power of her healing magic. Tressa's injury was healed before it could become too severe, and Primrose let out a sigh of relief. She knew that something so minor would never come close to killing Tressa or anyone else, but the fear of grief was still firmly knotted in her stomach, and she doubted that she would be escaping it anytime soon.
"Sorry about that!"
The person who had walked out of the store showed himself to be a tall young man wearing a green jacket. His hair was light brown and seemed to fly in every direction like the grasses of the Flatlands that Primrose loved so much. His expression was difficult to place. The smile on his face was genuine yet strained, and his eyes were filled with panic as he looked towards Tressa. "Are you alright?" he questioned, each word coming out in a hurried blur that ran towards the next set of syllables mercilessly.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Tressa assured him with a smile. She pulled her hands away from her nose and let out a sigh upon realizing that Ophilia's magic had completely resolved the issue already. "See? All good!"
"I'm glad to see it," the young man told her. Primrose's gaze drifted down to his hand, and she saw that there was a large axe poised between his fingers. He gave her a fleeting smile before starting to dash away towards the back end of town.
Primrose didn't know what possessed her to speak, but she did know that she reached one hand out in his direction carefully against her regular plans of interaction. "Wait," she said. He turned towards her with that same anxious optimism riding a knife's edge in his eyes. "What are you doing?"
The young man hesitated, glancing to the back part of town before looking back to her. "There's some business I need to take care of," he replied. His voice was a country drawl that Primrose had never heard before, and she found it oddly lovely to listen to. In a way, his voice was like a balm against her rattling nerves, and that was certainly something she could appreciate. "I need to go and take care of a little critter problem in the caves near here."
"Maybe we could help you," Ophilia chimed in. Primrose realized that the cleric had been staring down at the small flickering flame of white in the lantern of hers once again. Ophilia had done that a lot the night before, though Primrose still had yet to hear the full reason as to why. Then again, nobody had explained much of anything after Primrose joined the group. Life had been to busy and hurried for anyone to have the heart to slow down and say anything that didn't revolve around sorrow and sorries for what had happened to Yusufa.
The young man hesitated for a long moment, just watching Ophilia to see if he could glean her intentions from a simple glance. When he was unable to, he simply shrugged and kept walking. "Shucks. I can't say no to an offer like that, can I?" he asked. He gestured for the rest of the group to follow after him. Primrose paused for a beat before trailing after him.
His name was Alfyn, and he was an apothecary. His duty was to infiltrate the Cave of Rhiyo to procure venom from a snake that had bitten a young child of Clearbrook. Ophilia was more than happy to help whenever she heard his tale, and the rest of the group seemed glad to tag along as well. With a tale that tragic, how could Ophilia refuse helping him? She didn't think that she had it in her.
The only member of the group who hadn't said a word since they set out was Primrose. All throughout Alfyn's explanation and introduction as to who he was, she had been deadly quiet, staring ahead and brandishing her dagger when a frog monster came into her line of sight. Ophilia swallowed dryly when she watched Primrose slice a slug beast to pieces when it dared to stray too close to her.
Primrose was a complicated person. That much was obvious. Ophilia didn't think that the word 'complex' had ever fit anyone more than it slipped effortlessly onto Primrose. Not much had been explained about Primrose's past, just that she was searching for this mysterious man who had wronged her in the past. Putting together the pieces was difficult with how little Ophilia had at her disposal, so she clung to what little information she did have and watched the dancer from afar.
There was one unsettling fact about Primrose though, and Ophilia wished that she had never realized it in the first place. When Primrose was fighting back against Helgenish, there had been something in her eyes: glee. Previously, Primrose had done her best to hide the fact that she was lost and wandering by smiling with as much grace as she could muster without letting the mask slip. When she raised her blade to Helgenish though, a newfound sense of purpose blossomed in her eyes, and it was frightening how easily she was able to flip the switch into becoming merciless and brutal.
Helgenish certainly deserved it. That was something Ophilia could say from the bottom of her heart. She hadn't seen much of the man before his death, but she didn't have to. She had seen more than enough, and the way that he had killed Yusufa was more than deserving of punishment. Still, there was just something off about the way that Primrose had handled herself when fighting back against him. She was ruthless, as if killing Helgenish was the only thing that could push her forwards. It was her sole bit of motivation, and after he died, she returned to being the same somewhat lost young woman who fumbled for a reason to press on when nobody was watching.
The one thread that was pulling Primrose forward seemed to be the fact that she was pursuing this mysterious figure that had done so much harm to her in the past. If not for that, she would have been left to stumble through life without much rhyme or reason. Ophilia had seen the lost grief in Primrose's eyes the night before as they settled down to sleep. Primrose's back had been to the rest of the camp, but Ophilia could see the side of Primrose's face for a brief while, and that was enough. There was more than met the eye as far as this dancer was concerned, and Ophilia couldn't tell if she was looking forward to unraveling the truth or if the idea terrified her.
Cyrus let out a small gasp. "Ophilia!" he exclaimed. The cleric snapped out of her daze and glanced around before realizing what it was that Cyrus was pointing to. One of the frog monsters of the Riverlands had come up beside her when she was lost in thought, and it was raring up for an attack with its self-made blade of nature.
Ophilia's first instinct was to throw her arms over her head. In the back of her mind, something told her that doing such would hardly be productive in terms of defending herself, but she was unable to rise back to her full height before the beast croaked in surprise at being hit. Ophilia hesitantly opened her eyes to see that Primrose's hand was outstretched, a sign that she had cast a spell of dark magic to fend off the beast.
Cyrus was the next to unleash an attack of ice at the frog, and Alfyn finished the monster off with a matching ice spell of his own. Ophilia realized that she hadn't yet noticed the fact that Alfyn could use ice magic. She had been too distracted with her musings about Primrose's odd behavior to snap out of her daze long enough to notice.
Speaking of Primrose, her hand came into Ophilia's field of vision a moment later. "Are you alright?" she asked. Ophilia looked up to meet her eyes, and she saw that Primrose was bearing a small yet genuine smile. It was strange to see Primrose looking so normal after her previous bouts of terrifying behavior. Her eyes were just as lost and misunderstood as they had been before, but her smile was a step in the right direction.
Ophilia nodded. She didn't reach out to take Primrose's hand, instead shoving her hand into her satchel haphazardly. "Y-Yes... Thank you," she said simply. Her fingers closed around the shaft of her staff, and she pulled it free of her bag. If they were going to have to deal with monster attacks, then Ophilia was going to have to be ready. She had been foolish to drop her guard in the first place.
Primrose nodded her understanding in Ophilia's direction before starting to walk away. The cleric stared at her for another long moment, wondering if she would ever be able to decipher the mystery behind who Primrose really was. Somehow, she doubted that Primrose was just a simple dancer of the Sunlands; for one, Primrose's appearance bore more similarities to Cyrus than the other occupants of Sunshade. Her complexion was paler than most people from the sandy regions of southern Orsterra, only adding yet another mystery to the grand puzzle that Ophilia had yet to understand in the slightest.
"Are you hurt at all?"
Alfyn's voice snapped through Ophilia's thoughts like a quick beam of lightning, and she glanced up in his direction as soon as she realized that he had fallen into step beside her. It took her an embarrassingly long time to answer as she stared at his features. His smile was large and proud but held many small faults that she caught onto only by a stroke of luck. "N-No... I'm alright," Ophilia told him once she had finally managed to process his words. That strained edge to his falsified grin remained all the same.
"Glad to hear it," Alfyn replied after he had given her a once over with his eyes to ensure that she was being honest. He was still wearing that same smile that he had pressed onto his face the first time that he ran into the rest of the group, saying that he was trying to help out a young child who had fallen sick and injured due to the infamous blotted viper. In fact, Alfyn had been smiling to some degree the entire time that he explained his story to the rest of the group, and in a way, it was almost unsettling.
On the surface, there was nothing wrong with Alfyn's bright smile and endless brazen optimism. However, Ophilia couldn't help but feel as if there was a bit more to the situation than met the eye, and when she looked closer at Alfyn, she could only think about how she had seen that look a thousand times in Lianna's eyes. Her sister was nothing if not a talented performer, putting on a mask of being fine despite her internal thoughts screaming the contrary.
Lianna was a complicated character, to say the least, and Ophilia had seen these issues up close due to her connection with the other woman. Lianna hid her true emotions behind a blanket statement of being fine, only snapping and allowing herself to fall apart when she knew that she was safe to do so. Lianna had been forced to hide her emotions in order to focus on her work within the church. Everyone was waiting for her to fulfill the purpose that was expected of her, and that same smile that Alfyn wore, so blatantly false yet somehow capable of fooling everyone, had been on her face a dozen more times than Ophilia could ever dream of counting.
Alfyn didn't seem to notice that Ophilia was observing him so critically in the first place though, as he had gone back to humming as he lined the path to the Cave of Rhiyo with the rest of the group in tow. When a frog monster jumped out of the bushes, he was quick to slash his axe even though the damage it did was minimal. The rest of the party ambushed the creature soon afterwards, and Ophilia unleashed a blow of ice, knowing that Cyrus had mentioned on the way to Clearbrook that the frogs of the Riverlands were weak to the freezing magic. She sighed as soon as the wave of monsters that followed the frog had been vanquished.
Ophilia still couldn't shake the idea that there was something else hiding beneath that mask of Alfyn's, like he was only smiling because it was his sole lifeline that ensured he didn't fall apart. It was almost twisted how clear it was to her that there was something wrong, and Ophilia swallowed dryly as she forced herself to stay quiet about it. She didn't want to cross any lines and make him uncomfortable, but at the same time, she wanted him to know that she was there for him. It would be a small gesture, yes, but it had always been at least a small relief to Lianna. Perhaps she was still holding tightly to the vain hope that she would be able to assist others the same way that she had helped her sister.
"It seems like we're almost to the Cave of Rhiyo," Olberic suddenly said, and Ophilia did her best to hide her shock that someone was speaking so loudly. She wondered how many smaller conversations she had missed out on while she was distracted with her own musings about Primrose and Alfyn, but she figured that was a question best left unanswered for the sake of her own reaction to the inevitably upsetting response.
Ophilia wondered what it was that Olberic was referring to specifically, but when she stopped walking to see that he was gesturing off to something in the distance, her question was immediately answered. At the edge of the winding path, there were a few torches stationed outside the entrance to a large cave with a mouth that led into a dungeon of complete shadow. The switch between light and dark was so stark and sudden that it almost sent a shiver running up Ophilia's spine. One instant, the ground was so perfectly illuminated and lined with emerald grass, and the next, complete darkness and shadow overtook the world.
"I don't know how Nina and Lily were able to get so far without running into monsters..." Alfyn muttered, and Ophilia recognized those two names as belonging to the children that had sparked this journey in the first place. Nina was the one who had gotten hurt, and Lily was the one who brought her back home despite the fear seeping throughout her heart.
"I suppose that being a smaller child would make it easier to evade the beasts..." Cyrus muttered to himself. He reached for his staff and began to hold it defensively. A moment later, Ophilia understood why, and a creature jumped free of the bushes. It moved so quickly that Ophilia barely had time to process what was happening, but the flash of Cyrus' staff spread across her field of vision. The monster, a small slug, was hit in the shell by the weapon.
Even though the damage to the slug as a result of the staff hit was minimal, it was enough to send the creature staggering back by a small amount. From there, Alfyn's axe slashed, and Primrose followed up with her dagger. Olberic's spear pierced the beast from there, and that was the end to this next encounter. Out of the corner of her eye, Ophilia saw that Tressa had been preparing to release an arrow from her bow, but she dropped the weapon back to her side when she noticed that the monster had already been taken care of.
It was with a grim twist of a smile that Ophilia recognized once again that Olberic hadn't yet been given the chance to replace his spear. Olberic had been in such a hurry as they left Cobbleston that he hadn't thought to buy a new lance before they left town. Sunshade had been such a suspicious and unsettling town that nobody wanted to go out on their own, not even the strongest physically among their ranks. Olberic had been too busy defending the rest of the group on their way to the inn, and their alliance with Primrose prevented any other process in terms of procuring a new weapon that did not once belong to a brigand. Their encounter with Alfyn had taken place as they were starting to enter the shop that would allow them to purchase the weapon in question, another roadblock in the process of finding a better spear. Hopefully, everything would calm down enough after they defeated the blotted viper to give them a moment to breathe. Part of her almost yearned for the days of Atlasdam and Rippletide when the journeys to take care of their target objective hadn't been quite so time sensitive and stressful.
"We're getting closer, so we had better keep going," Alfyn announced once he was sure that the slug beast was dead. He started to go down the hill that the group was standing on top of, his axe still brandished and waiting a new fight from its place between his fingertips. It wasn't long before the rest of the group had trailed behind him. Time was still of the essence if they wanted to arrive back in time to rescue Nina from the grip of the blotted viper's poison, so they had to keep going. Ophilia prayed that they would run into fewer monsters than before throughout the remaining duration of their journey.
The rest of the way down the hill was quiet, and Alfyn was the one who ultimately broke the silence. He let his axe fall down to his side once he was sure that there were no monsters around. "Y'know... Nina and Zeph really don't deserve all this," he muttered to himself. He didn't even entirely sure as to who it was that he was talking to. He was just saying it to anybody who was willing to listen, it seemed.
Everyone in the group heard, and it seemed as if they all agreed with it in their own ways. Lianna didn't deserve to watch as her father fell sick on the eve of the most important journey of her life. The people of Rippletide didn't deserve to see their lives taken away by selfish pirates who would never dream of returning the kindness that they showed to all. Philip didn't deserve to face trauma at the hands of the brigands outside of Cobbleston that had taken him without hesitation. Yusufa didn't deserve to be killed because Helgenish refused to accept that people didn't live beneath his heel. The world was turning itself out to be harsh so far on this journey.
In a way, Ophilia couldn't help but think about how Nina and Zeph were just another pair of victims in the face of the universe's cruelty. She had seen enough bloodshed and brutality to last a lifetime between her childhood in the midst of a fruitless effort of war. Afterwards, once she had become a cleric in the Church of the Sacred Flame, she healed countless injured people who had been hurt as a result of matters that were out of their control. Ophilia was all too familiar with what it meant to face hardship and still somehow come out the other side, and she detested how aware she was of the pain of others.
She had seen a lot of suffering as a child, and even when she grew up, it seemed like every direction that she looked held someone who was struggling in their own way. Perhaps that was the reason for her empathetic nature; Ophilia had come to understand what it meant to see pain on the faces of others, and the last thing that she wanted to do was inflict it upon any other. She worked with the church because she wanted to help people. In the beginning, it had been a matter of repaying debts, but these days, she just wanted to do what she could to aid those who were struggling and unable to stay afloat on their own terms.
That was what had gotten her into all of these situations. Even before Primrose and Alfyn explained their tales, Ophilia was able to see the quiet pain hidden in their eyes. The Ember had pushed her to finally reach out and say something to help them, but she had been aware of the fact that they were hurting long before that. She could just see it in the way that they carried themselves, and Ophilia refused to allow any person to suffer if there was something that she could do to ease their burden. It hurt her too much to even imagine, and so, she was dragged into countless escapades of adventure and danger because she was too selfless to ever imagine declining the chance to help others.
"You're right..." Ophilia finally forced herself to say. She managed to speak around the lump that had formed in her throat, though she wasn't entirely sure when it was that the sensation had made its unfortunate arrival. "They don't deserve this. But that's why we're going to take care of this snake and get the venom needed to make the antidote. We're going to make sure that they're alright."
Alfyn nodded, a gentle smile on his face. "Thanks again for all this. I really do owe you one, huh?" he questioned. He didn't seem to be willing to accept any of their attempts to decline his offer, and when Ophilia opened her mouth to speak, he just shook his head. "If any of you need it, I'd be happy to heal you up. Just say the word, you hear?"
There was a general consensus of understanding among the group's members. Ophilia had to admit that she wished there was more that she could do for Nina. She was fully aware of the unfortunate weaknesses to healing magic. Sickness was out of her control, and poison fell under that category as well. Her white magic would do nothing to help Nina recover faster; this was something that Alfyn alone would be able to handle.
Some dark part of her mind wondered if perhaps Alfyn would be able to do something to help out her father. Alfyn certainly seemed to know what he was doing in terms of apothecary work, and if he was able to identify the sickness, then he would be able to do something. Ophilia was uncertain as to if such a thing would even work though; Josef had certainly given up hope on seeing another day of health, and nobody even understood what it was that had gotten him so sick in the first place. No doctor was able to glean the truth from Josef's symptoms, and somehow, Ophilia knew that no matter how much she hoped he had this power, Alfyn wouldn't be able to figure it out either. He was only human, and the restrictions of being human were the reason for needing this venom in the first place. Not even the most talented apothecary was capable of working a miracle.
Ophilia was blissfully relieved when the cave arrived in her line of sight. Alfyn stopped from his place at the front of the group, and he shoved one hand into his satchel. "Before we go in there, I need to give you all this," he declared. He earned the attention of his five companions with those words, and when he pulled his fingers free of the bag, his hand was filled with herbs. "If you act fast, then poison won't be able to hurt you as much. If you're quick enough, then you can negate its effects entirely. You should all take a few of these before we go into the cave."
As Alfyn went on to distribute the herbs, he continued to speak. "Obviously, the hope is that none of us get bitten in the first place, but this is a nice backup plan for now. I can do something to treat bites before they get too bad too," he said. "I hope you're all ready for what's waiting for us in there, because I doubt it's gonna be pretty."
Nobody backed down despite the situation at hand, and Alfyn let out a small sigh before he turned towards the cave. "Well, now that everything's been settled... Let's see what this cave has waiting for us," he declared. With that said, he walked inside. It wasn't long before the other members of the group trailed after him. Ophilia closed her eyes for a brief moment as the light of the outside shifted to the shadows of the cave.
In the silence, she mouthed a prayer for Nina's survival. She wanted to save at least somebody.
Update time again! Yay!
Since there's so little dialogue in Alfyn's chapter one, we've got a lot of filler dialogue among the cast. The boss fight is probably going to happen at the end of next chapter instead of at the start of the fourth chapter of Alfyn's chunk, and there will be more time focusing on banter and random encounters. All in all, I like how chill Alfyn's chapter is from a pacing perspective. It's what he deserves.
There's not all that much else to say about this chapter, so I'm going to leave things off here since it's ridiculously late as per my tradition for this story. Next week, we'll get to the third chapter of Alfyn's tale! Until then, I hope you all enjoyed! Feedback is always appreciated. Have a nice day, everybody!
-Digital