Felinis: Ever notice that once Flynn goes from being the princess in another castle to stalking you from afar the moment he's introduced? I'm just saying...
It's almost a week till they reach Dahngrest. The town is large and tall in the distance as they stand on the bridge leading in. Yuri let's out a whistle as they head inside Karol marching proud. "This is Dahngrest, my hometown."
Along the way they had wandered through a few small guild towns, but none were this big. "Looks like a pretty lively place."
"Well, it's the second largest city after the imperial capital. It's run entirely by the guilds." Karol cheers as he gestures to the people moving about.
"I'd thought it would be more dark and dank, you know? Like a den of villains."
Karol puffs his chest in annoyance. "That's just a prejudice people have about the guilds. I don't go labeling you for being different!"
"I'm sure the bad reputation of the Blood Alliance is to blame for that." Estelle reasons calming him down.
"Yeah. Jeez, Yuri. You make it sound like I'm a villain."
Rita snorts and jeers a thumb at Yuri. "If you're a villain, what does that make him?"
"Point taken." Yuri says and finds that oddly enough nobody is giving him a passing look. "So, how should we go about tracking down Barbos?"
"The best way is probably to stop by the Union and check there." Karol says placing his hands behind his head as they stroll through.
Estelle stops a moment and notes a man strolling with a cart. "Mutton! Fresh mutton!"
"The Union. A guild collective run by the five so-called master guilds. ...Right?" Estelle asks staring at the mutton man. Yuri is just as confused as her as to why this man is selling mutton on the road leading in and out of town.
"Yeah. The Union also serves as the city's government."
"But, how is this gonna work? Isn't Barbos' Blood Alliance one of the five master guilds?" Rita stops and also looks over at the mutton man.
"Which means if we lay a hand on him, we'll be picking a fight with the Union as well." Yuri scowls. Great, another corrupt government official.
"...We won't know the answer to that until we ask the Don." Seriously, what is with this mutton guy?
"The Don is the boss of the Union, isn't he?"
Karol nods. "Yep. Don Whitehorse, leader of Altosk, the most powerful of the five master guilds."
"All right, let's go see what the Don has to say then. You know the way, right Karol?" Yuri says slapping him on the back as they finally cross the bridge.
Karol runs in front of them blocking their way. "Hey wait, he's not the kind of person you can just meet... I don't really know if-"
Estelle looks at him with big puppy eyes. "Please?"
Karol sighs in defeat. "...Union headquarters is in the north part of town." It's a crowded city with color and character totally different from Zaphias. The buildings in the capital always blended into each other, but here they all seem different sizes and shape. The streets are full of vendors and people milling about living life. Very few people seem to bat an eye on the fact he's a Krytian and it's pleasant change of pace. Karol is leading them hesitantly leading them through the streets towards the Union Headquarters.
Rita smacks his shoulder making Karol bolt upright. "Hey, what are you doing?"
Karol looks back and forth nervously. "What? Uh, n-nothing."
"Hmm? Well, well, if it ain't little Karol!" A deep bass bellows as a large man walks up to the boy who turns his eyes down.
"What the hell are you thinking, coming back here?" Another lankier man says tapping his sword on his shoulder.
The man pushes him and Karol's balance falters a little. "H-hey! Wh-what's with you?"
"Yeah, I don't see Nan. She already ditch you?" The lanky one says as they both laugh.
Karol shakes his head and clenches his fist. "N-no way! She wouldn't stop nagging so I took off!" This would explain why Karol wasn't too eager to go to Dahngrest. These guys are a bunch of pathetic assholes. Any adult that thinks they should pick on a little kid needs to grow up and gets some balls.
"So are you the latest guild to take him in? You could do a lot better than that loser!" Fatso jeers. "All this kid can brag about is the number of guilds he's joined! Oh, right, that's a bad thing." The laugh again as if it's the funniest joke in the world and Yuri wants to slug them. It's not worth it though wasting his fists on them.
Yuri smirks and takes the face of fatso in his hands. "Are these your friends, Karol? You could do a lot better than these losers." He says turning away tossing his hair.
"Wh-what did you say, you fucking long eared cunt?" Fasto yells throwing a fist and Yuri that he easily ducks away from.
Estelle gasps and turns her head in disgust. "Such undignified men!"
Lanky holds out his sword furiously. "Shut up!"
"You sure have a way of saying things. I mean, you're right, but-" Rita starts to insult, but stops as she hears a bell ring out through the town and the ground starts to shake. "What's that sound?"
The men have run off frustrated as Karol's eyes go wide. "The alarm... Monsters are here."
"Monsters? ...Wait, is this shaking the monsters' footsteps...?" Estelle looks at the guildsman grabbing weapons and gathering to the edge of town.
"If so, they've brought quite an army."
Karol seems perfectly calm despite it all and waves a finger knowingly. "Yeah, but don't worry. Even if there have been a lot of monsters around here lately our barrier here is strong, and it's never been broken before. And the guilds take care of the monsters outside the barrier." The crackling of thunder echoes above and they look in horror as the barrier breaks apart and vanishes. "...Huh? Oh crap!"
"The barrier...disappeared...?" Estelle gasps.
"What the hell is going on? The monsters are going to get inside!" Rita says in horror.
"Damn it, why do things like this always happen to me, no matter where I go?" Did Yuri bathe in blood of black cats or something? What the hell is with his luck?
Rita crosses her arms and shakes her head. "You gotta be cursed."
"Probably." They run to the fray of monsters and panicked citizens. A giant insect dives between them and they duck away in surprise. "This is crazy. Where are all these monsters coming from?"
Karol swings his hammer at an incoming basilisk that runs up to attack them. "Something isn't right!"
Estelle nods holding her sword at the ready. "Doesn't something seem different about the monsters as well?" They seem larger and more aggressive than normal. Yuri remembers bumping into some of these on the road, but they were never this big or aggressive.
Yuri flips over an incoming rhinosuss and stabs his sword through the eye and backflips to send a beam of blue energy at a basilisk to his left. He throws a powerful fist into another basilisk's face followed with a swift kick as Karol smashes its head into red paste. They share a quick smile and quickly duck away from launching fireballs.
"Rita, I know fire is your thing, but can please not aim at us." Karol yells waving his hammer.
This time stones launch from the ground behind them impaling a basilisk. "Shut up! You try aiming five fireballs at once." She smacks a monster with her book muttering another spell as Estelle does her best to parry off a crab man. The spell releases and Estelle twirls out the way of a fireballs and takes advantage of the crab man's staggered state to ram her blade between its plates. Their relief is short lived as a beetle dives from above again knocking them to the ground. The girls roll away as Repede jumps on its back driving his blade in the skull and leaping after a skunkie. "Damn, there's no end to them." Rita wipes the sweat from her brow catching her breath. "It's just one right after the other!"
Estelle stops attacking when she sees a man fallen in the street with a gash in his chest and starts casting healing artes. This needs to be stopped soon or a lot of innocent civilians could die! Yuri sees another person being divebombed and launches and arte as he goes back to slashing the crab man in front of him.
"Th-thank you so much." The woman calls and Yuri parries a claw.
"Forget it! Run!" He yells and letting another arte attempting to run off two charging rhinosuss heading towards fleeing towns people. Damn! He's not gonna make it! Yuri fears he's about to see them run through when a large figure jumps down cutting down four monsters with one swing.
Standing tall is a gruff man wit with gray hair and red tattoos on his face slashing down monsters easily. "Come on ya filthy maggots, I'll take the lot of ya! Come see how it feels ta get beat down by an old man!" The man cheers as the men rally behind him.
"That old guy is really going after them. Who the hell is he?" Yuri says catching his breath.
Karol's eyes glint eagerly. "It's the Don! That's Don Whitehorse!"
"So that's him, huh?" Yuri says as the rallied townspeople attack the monsters crying out the Don's name. The man is leading them with a victorious roar as they start to drove the monsters back. It's then that Yuri's eyes go wide as he catches sight of a familiar figure. What the hell are Flynn and his brigade doing here?
"We've come to help subdue the monsters!" Flynn says running up to the Don who points a sword to his face.
"Hold yer horses, knight-boy! We couldn't live with ourselves if we let the Knights do our dirty work. Now get the hell outta here!"
Flynn stands firm clutching the hilt of his sword. "Is this really the time for that?"
The Don spits on the blonde's cheek with a grin. "Each and every one of these people left the empire of their own free will and joined a guild! There ain't a soul in this town so spineless they'd go runnin' ta you guys fer help." Flynn starts to protest logic, but the Don shuts him up by pressing the swords tip closer to his face. "These're the rules of the life we've chosen. It's up to us to make sure those rules don't get broken." Holding to their beliefs no matter what's at stake... So that's what a real guild is like. It's both different, yet similar to Knights. It's what they should be if the empire was built on morals and creeds rather than money and control.
"Hey, you there! Lead the way." Rita says pushing Karol.
"I have a name you know! Wh-where are we going, anyway?" He protests.
"We're going to repair the barrier blastia. If we don't, the city will be overrun with monsters!" Estelle as she stares at the chaos.
Yuri's about to jump back into fray only to have Rita yank him back. "You're coming, too! Worry about your boyfriend later."
"I feel like this is something I should have corrected five towns back, but he's not my boyfriend." Yuri says following after.
"I don't care."
Karol guides them through alleys away from the chaos towards the western part of town. "The barrier failed right as the monsters appeared? What the hell is going on in this city?"
"I've lived in Dahngrest my whole life, but I've never seen anything like this."
Rita sighs. "So why the hell do we have such terrible timing?"
"How should I know?" Karol complains and Yuri watches everyone's eyes drift to him. Oh sure, blame the Krytian. Talk about profiling.
"What? You don't really think I'm cursed, do you?" Yuri says and they turn their heads… Well, that's a vote of confidence.
They arrive at the blastia to the horror of two men lying dead on the ground. "...We're too late. This is so horrible."
Rita grimaces but pushes through them. "Outta the way!" She looks at the blastia and opens up the keyboard. "Hmm, I might be able to do something with this."
The groups eyes widen as they see red eyes come up and try to hurt Rita with their blades. Estelle and Repede dash to fend off the attackers. "Rita, watch out! Behind you!"
They're a little late as the man grabs Rita into a headlock holding a blade to her. "We won't let you fix the barrier."
Rita kick her captor in groin and slip out throwing a spell out. "What the hell! It's just one thing after another! I'm sick of this!" Estelle bashes the currently stunned one with the blunt end of the sword while Repede casts an arte on the others knocking them down. It doesn't seem like these guys were skilled fighters at all.
"Looks like we have those guys to thank for the barrier blastia failing on us." Yuri says kicking one with edge of his foot.
"But why?" Estelle mutters looking sadly at the dead guards.
The sound of footsteps approaching comes to a halt as Yuri sees Flynn and a handful of his men run up. Flynn's eyes don't seem surprised to see them as he smiles. "Looks like you've got your hands full over here."
Yuri jumps the railing and down to the ground. "So, the Don's little lecture didn't stick?"
"I'm just doing what I can to help. How's the repair of the barrier blastia going?"
"That'll depend on our genius mage, here." Yuri says throwing a thumb Rita's way. "The barrier disappeared when the monsters attacked. It can't be a coincidence that they happened at the same time, can it?"
"Probably not."
"So does your appearance here mean this is tied up with all of the empire's problems?"
"I don't know. That's why I came here to check things out." Flynn says and relief hits all their faces when the barrier flickers back into the sky. He turns around calling to his troops. "All right, time to clean up the monsters outside the barrier! The guilds won't be able to complain if we fight monsters outside the city."
"We'll leave the monsters to Flynn. Let's go to the Union and ask about Barbos." Yuri states as Flynn leaves.
Estelle smiles as she glances up at him. "You really trust Flynn, don't you?"
"Only because there's no one else I can trust. That's how I look at it." It's always been that way. Yuri never needed anyone else to like him once he had Flynn and Norien. He couldn't imagine not trusting Flynn since Yuri is sure he'd be dead ten times over without him.
He's a little surprised to see Estelle rub her eyes and shake her head. "Yuri, I don't get you sometimes."
"What! What I say?" He looks at Karol who also shooting him a look. "Can someone please tell me what I did wrong?"
"Yuri, you're unbelievable." Karol sighs leading them back the way towards the Union Headquarters. When they reach the door the robed man at the door looks at them idly. "Hmm? Who are you all?"
"We need to talk to the Don about something. Help us out, could you?" Yuri grins.
"It's a matter that concerns the five master guilds." Karol pleads.
The man looks them over raising a brow. "I haven't seen you around here recently. What guild do you belong to?"
"Er, we don't belong to a guild, exactly." Yuri says rubbing the back of his head.
The man takes in a long breath before finally speaking again. "...Unfortunately, the Don has left town in pursuit of the monsters."
"He went after the monsters?" Karol exclaims and the gateman nods.
"Yes, he plans on taking out the monster nests in one fell swoop."
"I see..." Well, that complicates things. "Thanks for the information."
The gateman smiles. "No worries."
Karol clenches his fist in light frustration. "...If I went and helped them, I could prove myself to the Don..."
"Oh, well. Shall we go look for information in town?" Yuri says looking about the streets.
"...What? We're not going to help the Don?" Karol shouts.
Yuri idly sets a hand on his hip looking down at the boy. "So you know where the monster nests are, then?"
Karol sags with defeat. "Oh, good point..."
Rita crosses her arms in annoyance. "Since it seems like you won't be making progress anytime soon, I'm going to go check out Keiv Moc."
"How selfish!" Karol shouts.
"I just want to get it out of the way as soon as possible."
Karol pouts looking at Estelle. "Then does that mean Estelle's going along with you?"
"Yes. I told Alexei I was going to go, after all..." She nods and smiles enthusiastically. "Don't worry. We'll be fine between the two of us."
"Sorry, 'fraid not. If you got hurt or anything, Flynn would hunt me down and kill me." Yuri interjects. Besides, protecting his best friend's girlfriend seems the least he can do while Flynn runs around.
"You're going to go, Yuri?" Karol whines.
"Well, we don't really have any good leads around town that we're following, anyway."
"Then it's decided! Let's go to the forest of Keiv Moc." Estelle cheers, but Yuri grabs her hand.
"Not so fast. It's pretty late right now." Yuri says pointing at the setting sun and Estelle blushes. "Let's stop for the night. I'm pretty hungry what about you, Repede?" The dog agrees vigorously.
Karol's face light's up. "I know just the place! Come on!" As they're heading down the road Karol turns to them with raised brows. "Come to think of it, why is Flynn in Dahngrest? The empire and the Union have never gotten along, so Knights don't show up here often."
"I doubt they're here to see the sights, either. It's gotta be tied up in one of their duties."
Estelle cups her hands worriedly under her chin. "Do you think Flynn's all right? Those guild people were being really mean to him."
Yuri smirks and gives her a little nudge. "Flynn's no delicate little flower. He can take some heat." There's a lot of doubt in her eyes and he proudly places his hands on his hips. "Don't forget. Before he was a knight he had to make it on the streets of the Lower Quarter." Hell, Flynn was a right bastard slum lord just like him.
Karol cheerfully opens the door to a tavern full of happy people milling about. "Welcome to Sagittarius the bar owned by the Don himself."
Estelle smiles at the lively atmosphere and band of fiddlers string a fine tune in the corner. "Dahngrest has a very different atmosphere from the capital, doesn't it?" Rita pulls out a chair for the princess and plops herself down in the one next to it. "The city seems so energetic. Everyone here is so full of life!"
Karol grins widely at the praise. 'Of course! It's the largest guild city. Everyone lives according to their own principles. Do you like Dahngrest Estelle?"
"Yes. I think it's lovely."
The boy turns eagerly towards him. "What about you, Yuri?"
Yuri sets himself in the seat and lazily tilts it backwards. "Mm? I think it'd be a really great city if the barrier wasn't crapping out."
"Yuri, will you please let that go?"
Yuri holds up his hands in surrender. "I'm kidding. The city's not bad at all. It even feels kind of like the Lower Quarter." Repede demands for food and Yuri chuckles. "All right. All right. I'm gonna go order us some food." Yuri is going to admit that it's a treat having no one really batting an eye at him. At the bar, he sees that there is a Krytian woman with navy hair and green antennas serving guildsman pitchers of beer. The men are laughing with her as she leans over exposing cleavage in a sleeveless purple top. She stops when she sees him straightening up.
"Greeting." She says recomposing herself from her previous state. Her head is strangely bowed to him as she smiles with a giddy nervousness. "How can I serve you?" Yuri hears the other patrons whispering about her strange behavior.
"Um, I'm just here to order food. No need to be formal on my behalf." She shakes her head adamantly and Yuri just runs a hand over his hair. Things just get weirder and weirder. "Look… I just want five seafood pastas and Amago tea." The Krytian woman nods her still bowing. "You can stop bowing. I'd like it if you looked at me since it's less awkward."
Nervously, the Krytian raises herself still averting her gaze. "Thank you... I will be sure to serve to the best of my ability."
"Thanks…. Um, is there any place where more Krytians are?"
Her eyes widen. "There aren't many, but there is a place we gather. The bar called the Gold Lily. Would you like me to call a meeting?"
"No, it's ok." He waves goodbye frankly a little creeped out by her. Either way he can meet someone and talk to them about his problems. Yuri sits down with others laughing as they enjoy a hot meal together and light conversation. As they head to an inn for the night Yuri isn't surprised to see Flynn walking the streets. "Hey!"
The blonde waves at him. "Good to see you."
"Work done for the day?"
"Yes, but it looks like the inns aren't having any knights. So we're going to have to camp out." Yuri tells everyone that they should just head in and let the adults have fun. "Can I ask what's got you smiling like that?"
"I'm going to get some answers. There's a bar full of Krytians that might be able tell me about who I am." Yuri beams pulling him along asking locals about the bar. The Dahngrest locals still don't seem to care much about Yuri, but they glare at Flynn the whole time. "Not gonna lie, I'm enjoying you being the freak of nature nobody likes for a change. It's refreshing."
Flynn glares at him. "Yuri…"
"You're trying to argue, but we both know better."
There's a sigh. "Yes, you're right." And, that's what ultimately makes it worse. Flynn awkwardly smiles as they make their way to the bar. "What will you do once you get your answer?"
"I don't know…" Yuri's never thought he'd get answers so to be close seems like a dream. The bar sits in the middle of the streets neither grand or shabby with a green door. Yuri's not sure why he's so nervous, but maybe it's because the idea knowing has his heart on edge. He takes moment to compose himself before Flynn just opens the door and walks in by himself as Yuri runs behind.
The bar is practically empty of both patrons and decorations. A Krytian barman stands cleaning a glass as and another two Krytian woman sitting in front of him. They stop as they see Yuri and dip their heads like the barmaid at Sagittarius.
"Greetings."
Yuri waves. "Hey."
The barman smiles slowly lifting his head. "It is an honor to meet you."
Yuri blinks because those are the kind of words he never thinks he'd hear. "…Right…"
The Krytian woman with short dark indigo hair speaks softly. "What brings you here?"
The other one with long black hair tied into a high bun. "We're happy to do what we can for you." Yuri struggles to find the words to say. How does he go about asking this? As he swims in his thoughts the black haired one sets a hand on his arm. "It's all right. Just start from the beginning." Hesitantly, Yuri introduces him and Flynn as they sit down at a table and the door is locked. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Yuri Lowell. What would you like to know?"
Felinis: DUN DUN DUN! In case your wondering I did use the actual menu from Sagittarius...