Disclaimer: It's Logic Puzzle Time! Let's start with an easy one: If the owners of Slayers are Japanese, and I am not Japanese, Do I own Slayers? (Answer: No). Here's a slightly harder one: If the point of suing someone is to get money in return for damages, and I'm not making any money from this story, and I don't have any significant savings, and I'm not doing damage with the story, should I be sued over it? (Answer: Also No). This concludes today's episode of Logic Puzzle Time.
Slayers: The Starbird Chronicles
Chapter 9: Meanwhile, in a Clearing Somewhere in the Forests of Kalmaart...
"Alright, I admit it! We're lost!" Lina shouted, exasperated.
I've been telling you that for the last four hours," replied Starbird, rather more calmly, "and I'm the one who's supposed to know where we're going." He leaned back against a nearby tree and closed his eyes.
"Uggh," groaned Naga, from the stretcher the others had set down in the center of the small (very small) clearing. She lay on her back with her hands pressed to her left thigh, bathing it in a soft, healing light. Her body was cushioned by three bags of supplies.
This is the aftermath of riding on a threadbare flying tablecloth.
Sure, the day started out well, with a good breakfast (waffles and cottage cheese with tea), courteous notes, and gift bags of supplies (including clothes enchanted against the cold of the north), and a tablecloth prepped and ready to go, if even more beat-up than the last one. In fact, even the first few hours of flight had gone smoothly. Everything went fine until Starbird, who had been steering, lost focus.
The tablecloth went berserk.
Almost twenty minutes later, after a superfast, out-of-control roller coaster ride, they crashed into the faceless forest with a new appreciation of Gable's power - it takes an incredibly well-crafted spell to resist alteration by mages of their caliber for any extended period of time (on the other hand, there's also the fact that it went out of control in the first place…). Anyway, Lina and Starbird were shaken up, and Naga got her leg broken. It was immediately after they splinted the leg and built the stretcher (both with wood knocked loose in the crash) that Starbird first contended they were lost, and Lina first denied it. Ergo, they had been wandering in the woods, lost, for four hours. With tension building for that long, it was only a matter of time before someone's temper flared.
Lina's did, quite suddenly and quite literally. Vice Flared, as a matter of fact.
Unfortunately for the travelers, her temper Vice Flared into right into a den of irritable Iron Boars, a half-dozen of which came out of the woods to ward them, waving their tusks and snorting menacingly.
"Crap," said Lina and Starbird, simultaneously.
"Ungh," groaned Naga. She would have said "crap" too, but she was only vaguely lucid; the healing spell she was using, in addition to repairing flesh and bone, acted as a powerful anesthetic.
Iron boars are tough customers; their bristly, metallic hide makes them resistant to many types of magic, and their tusks are extremely hard and sharp. Also, it's hard to fight when you have to protect an injured companion, especially when you could get trampled into the ground in the time it would take to pick said companion up. So, when the beasts started charging, they did the only thing they could think of:
"WINDY SHIELD!"
"WINDY SHIELD!"
Actually, they might have gotten away had they just left Naga and run, and indeed there are precedents for that sort of act in Lina's previous behavior, but for some reason (knowing Starbird wouldn't leave her and not wanting him to get trampled, most likely), she stayed and helped protect the invalid.
On the other hand, two people with Windy Shield spells can't hold off a singular of Iron Boars forever; they can break through if they gang up, and they get clever fast. So, as the shields started to show signs of weakening, the mages started using Dimilar Wind to blow them away instead. However, the boars were a bit too clever. Suddenly, the tusks of the sole remaining boar, the alpha male by the looks of it, were dug into the ground on either side of Naga.
Of course, the rest of the boar was another six feet away, with a significant quantity of tall, green-haired man-with-a-longsword in between.
"Now," he said, tapping the beast's shoulder with the flat of his sword's large, shiny blade, "scram."
In any sane world, and with any sane type of monster, he would have been trampled for that; so, of course, the boar ran off into the woods, squealing the proverbial "Wee wee wee all the way home."
Trouble thus neatly averted, the stranger sheathed his sword and turned to face them.
"They're very sensitive about their tusks," he said, quite matter-of-factly and presumably by way of introduction.
"Who the hell are you, and what are you doing here?" replied Lina, true to form.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry. I'm Lees. Lees Grensword. Swordsman Itinerant for the greater Kataart region. I saw your explosion, so I came to investigate. I'm afraid," he glanced around at the scorched forest that had been the victim of Lina's temper, "that I'm going to have to issue a reprimand for this kind of damage."
"Do you..." Lina began, indignantly, but Starbird interrupted her.
"Wait, did you say we're in Kataart?" he asked, incredulously.
"Huh? No, I said I work in Kataart. Right now, we're about a day's travel from the marked border between Kataart and Kalmaart." Lees sounded as though he'd had to explain this more than once before.
"Oh, great. We were heading to northeastern Kalmaart when we got lost," Starbird returned.
"Really? If you're lost, I can take you to a town near here." Replied Lees, helpfully. "It's on the way to where I'm going, and I was planning on spending the night there anyway"
"We'd be very grateful." Starbird bowed slightly.
Lees suddenly started walking off. When he noticed no one was following, he turned around. "Well, come on, then," he beckoned them.
Lina stared at him, bewildered. This guy's almost as big a flake as Gourry. "Aren't you going to reprimand us? Or at least find out who we are?"
"Good point. Who are you?"
"I'm the beautiful sorcery genius, Lina Inverse; this," she pointed to Starbird, "is Starbird, also a sorcery genius, and not half bad looking, even if his hair's a little weird. And the goth-queen on the stretcher is Naga the Serpent."
"Oh, you have an injured companion?" Lees replied, somewhat hastily. "I hadn't noticed her. We'd better hurry."
"Aren't you going to reprimand us?" There was a definite tone of challenge in Lina's voice.
Lees gulped. "Um. We have to get your friend out of the wild as quickly as possible. So, maybe later." Also, from what I've heard, you'd probably blast me if I did. Besides, with your reputation, it's lucky you didn't burn the whole forest down. But he didn't voice these thoughts. He may have been a bit of a flake, but he wasn't an idiot.
By the time they reached the town, which was called Ralz, It was already dark, and they were hungry. Thus, after dropping Naga off at the local healer's, they went to a likewise local tavern, where Lees insisted on buying drinks for the others and, not wanting to be rude, they accepted. A few hours later, we come upon the following scene: Lina buried in her food, Lees eating more politely (but just as fast, judging by the relative size of their stacks of empty plates), and Starbird, well... Starbird doesn't have very high alcohol tolerance.
"Y'know, Lina, they've got a song about you..." he said, slurring only slightly.
"Excuse me," said Lees, "I need to use the restroom."
"Really?" said Lina, mouth full (of course).
"Yeah." Starbird grinned, looking pleased with himself.
Lina swallowed. "How's it go?"
"You'll like this," Starbird replied, and launched into the familiar rhythm of a slightly off-key drinking song:
"We ~ 'll
drink a drink a drink
To Lina the Pink the Pink the Pink
The terror of the Human Ra-ha-hace
She fights villains and monsters
With her terrible powers
And was victorious in every case!
Well here's a story
That can never be boring…"
He was so caught up in his song that he didn't notice the growing light across the table.
Halfway across town, Lees Grensword (Who also knew the song) smiled and shook his head as a plume of flame erupted from the tavern.
Author's Note: Yay, another chapter! Another chance to draw in new readers, who will appreciate my work and review it! Aw, who am I kidding? Anyway, I got through the scene I was having trouble with in the chapter after next, and am quite satisfied with the effect, so I anticipate less problems after that. On the other hand, I'm Beta-reading a fanfic for someone else, and plan to do the next chapter of that before I type the next chapter of this. Anyway, the next few chapters, starting with the one before this, will be basically alternating between main character chapters and elsewhere chapters; not necessarily with every other one, but mostly. This means that the next chapter will be shorter again, while the one after it, the one that I was having problems with, is quite long. Just so you know what's going on. I look forward to any reviews you people feel like writing.
1) "Singular" is the word for a group of boars (Like "Pod" for Dolphins, or "Pride" for Lions), not out of ironic perversity, but because seeing boars in a group is a "Singular" occurrence. Of course, this is less true for Iron Boars, which rarely travel alone. The reason I used boars? Well, frankly, I used Dragons before, I'll be using them again, and I wanted something different. And boars with bristles like Iron fit the bill for both originality and Magic Resistance, which was also needed (otherwise, they could have beaten them easily).
2) The town of Ralz is pronounced as Ralts, with a German-type z. Just so you know, y'know?
3) The song Starbird was singing is by me; it's a Slayers version of the Irish Drinking song "Lily the Pink," specifically as recorded by The Irish Rovers. The full version is also on this site, at Story ID 1274015, though that version could not have been composed before the beginning of TRY.
4) Referring back to Gable's Idea of "Dra-Mata," It seems the versions in the Anime are rather less elaborate. Saman, in the first episode, doesn't get much out before Lina threatens him, but the Bandits in Perfect/The Motion Picture say something that sounds like "Ano naka komodama de Doragon sae mo yokete mataide to aru ga iu." I don't understand it perfectly, and I'm not sure about the where all the words break, especially in the first bit, but my best guess is that it's something along the lines of "One whom it's said that even a Dragon would straddle in order to avoid." (For the record, "Dora" is still from "Doragon," and "Mata" is still from "Matagu" (in the form of "Mataide")). Gable, on the other hand, clearly made up his own version of the moniker. There's another useless piece of information/speculation for you to consider.
Next Chapter: 'Something Wicked This Way Comes.' Or rather, 'That Way Goes.' Or maybe 'Is What We're Dealing With Here.' I dunno, and I don't particularly want Shakespeare, or whoever wrote his stuff if he didn't, turning over in his/her grave, so I'll stop now. At any rate, In the next chapter, we get to meet a Villain, and a real one, not just some stupid Bandit Boss.
