Chapter 1: The Psion
"Go! Go!" Kat's father called up the stairs. "You've already missed Master Roland's speech, and now they're going to leave without you! Honestly!" Katherine ran out the front door of her family's small house. "They're already over the bridge! Hurry!" her father urged.
Kat was a young girl with brown hair to her mid-back and blue eyes, a rarity among Clavats. She had always lived at home with her family, helping her dad run the shop. Every year she would watch the Crystal Caravan leave to collect Myrrh. She was always excited by it, even if she didn't show the giddy enthusiasm other kids did. She never reacted to anything to the extreme, always seeming to have something more important on her mind.
And now she was going to miss the Caravan.
The wagon was already moving towards the edge of the town crystal's sphere of influence. Kat just managed to jump onto the wagons back step before the chalice sphere parted from the town. "Oh, hello. I almost marked you absent." Kat looked up to see a bronze helmet with a single horn popping out the side above her. "Marked me absent?" she inquired. "Hmm... Yes, that's what all the new caravaneers wondered, too. Calvin wanted to know exact details of all the members, so he enlisted me for the job." "OK... and who is Calvin?" "Calvin is the leader and master planner for the group. Tell me, what does your father do for a living?" "Oh, my dad and I run the store. By the way, what is your name?" Kat asked. "I am Theamus. Have you ever had any combat experience?" Jeez, this guy doesn't know the meaning of a conversation, Kat thought to herself as she settled in for a long interrogation.
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Kat peeked over the edge of her hammock/cot/bed/thing in the wagon, watching Calvin hold his forehead in his hands out of frustration, causing his blond forelocks to stick up comically. Of course, when he let go to continue writing on the map spread out before him, the Clavat's hair stayed that way. Kat had been on the caravan for about three weeks. She had already helped obtain the first drop of Myrrh from the River Belle Pass, and had gotten to know everybody. First there was Calvin below her. He was truly obsessive about planning every last detail, practically every blow, in advance. He had been with the caravan for the last five or six years. There was also Theamus, the Yuke she had meet before. He was the Alchemist's son, and had a completely bizarre personality. He was new this year, like her. Just walking in the front of the wagon was the Yuke Amanaria, also an experienced member. She had been a wonderful person to Kat, showing her the ropes and introducing her to everyone. Through the front, she could see Jerimis, a seasoned Lilty warrior, holding the papopotimus's reins. A new Lilty this year was Kella. She was lounging two bunks down. Somewhere outside, there was Nu Dai, a Selkie and another new member. Finally, there was Gylfie. Technically, her name was two words, like all other Selkies, but the experienced caravaneer ended up being called that anyway. Gylfie was the person Kat could relate most to in the group, so she made a special effort to make friends with her. All together, there were four seasoned people, and four new ones.
The Tida wagon was now travelling in the Vale of Alfitaria. Tipa had taken Myrrh from all the dungeons up to the vale in the past two years, so the closest trees where in the Manor and Tida. Calvin heaved a sigh below. "I guess we will have to stop at Alfitaria before heading to Tida," he said, as if this was a particularly bad thing. "We'll stay for a night and get on the road the next day at sunrise. With any luck, we can be done in Tida in four days. Amanaria, you can get the foodstuffs, here's the list." He gave the Yuke a folded parchment as she sat down under Kat's bunk. "Sure, that is not a problem," she calmly stated. Kat hopped down next to her. "How are you doing?" the Clavat asked cheerily. "Oh- you know, just taking life as it grants itself. How have you been doing on honing your powers?"
This was Kat's most outstanding feature. All her life, she had been able to sense things and to do things that others couldn't. At around five years of age, she had been brought to Master Roland about her remarkable talents. After extensive studying and testing, the elder determined that she had somehow developed some form of psionic ability, a trait that had not existed since long before the Miasma. She had always meditated and trained since that discovery, and had found a weak form of mind "reading" and a way to project a thought into another. When she first meditated outside of Tipa, however, she had found these skills honed to a massively greater degree. She could hear the outer thoughts of practically anyone (she couldn't even touch the two Yukes, and the Selkies could always tell she was listening somehow, but otherwise...), and could confer any magnitude of thought or memory. And again, ever since she had left the sphere of influence, she had sensed something in the back of her mind, the kind of thing that bugs you in the middle of a sleepless night. "It's going well, considering," Kat replied. "I mean, I can't move mountains, I just ha-"She stopped, furrowing her brow. "What is wrong, Kat?" Amanaria noticed her abrupt pause. "I don't know... I just felt something wrong from that direction," Kat furrowed her brow, pointing. The Yuke lifted the window hatch and looked out. "Hmmm... You seem to be referring to Tida." Both caravaneers looked at each other, worried.
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As it turned out, the trip into Alfitaria would be downtime for Kat, she wasn't assigned any duty by Calvin. She was walking towards the great crystal with Gylfie, watching Calvin march off to the blacksmith, all full of gumption. "Hey, you wanna grab a bite to eat? It'll be a refreshing change from travel rations," remarked the Selkie. Soon, they were sitting at a small table near the moat that surrounded the city-state. "Did you know that there is a moogle nest in a drain pipe down there?" Gylfie asked. "No," Kat responded, looking up from a plate of lasagna, "Maybe we could give it a visit after we finish.""Good idea... I'll be right back, I need to use the restroom." Her fellow traveler got up and walked into the restaurant proper. "I wonder if the moogle there wi-""STOP IN THE NAME OF THE ROYAL GUARD!" The caravaneer whipped around to face the source of the shout. A man draped in a cloak and a wide brimmed hat was running down the street, closely pursued by four armed knights decked out in gold and iron armor with wicked-looking halberds. The man dove over the rail and practically flew down the steps to the ledge below. The Lilties followed him down and soon cornered him at the end of the ledge. Kat ran to the rail to watch.
"You are not my enemy. Let me pass." The man's voice was deep and full of authority. The knights looked among themselves, sniggering under their breaths. "Sir, you have several offenses to your name. You need to come to the palace with us. This isn't a novel, it's an arrest," the lead guard said, stepping forward. Suddenly, the stranger flew towards the Lilties, drawing something from under the cloak in a whir. Before Kat could inhale, the man was standing where the lead knight was, splattered lightly with blood. A splash echoed below. The three remaining knights took an involuntary step back, peering at the strange weapons the man wielded. He was holding two iron rings, each with four wide, rectangular, curved blades attached at cardinal points. Before any more time passed, the man jumped forth, propelling himself off of the two knights standing side by side, bringing both "quadblades" up on the last officer. The three Lilties slid limply to the ground in synchrony. The man quietly pushed them in the water, then seemed to pour the contents of a pouch in after them. The dust glinted in Kat's eye.
"What's wrong?" Kat looked back to see Gylfie coming out of the building. "What are you looking at?" the Wolfie asked. "Umm..." Kat looked back at the ledge, then saw the man disappearing down the street.
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That night, Kat was tossing and turning in a sleeping bag next to a dead fire and her town's wagon. She woke up slowly, looking at the sky. Everything was so quiet... no noise from the metropolis behind her. She looked at the nearby guardhouse, and strangely, the Lilties were looking at the ground, as if asleep under their helmets. Footsteps echoed in the field. She saw the man from before walk out of the city, past the knights, and down the road. He stopped a little ways out, and seemed to turn his head slightly towards her. Then he was gone. The guards snapped awake, and a low murmur of night-traffic drifted from behind her. Slowly, she lay back down, and drifted off.
A/N: Next chapter soon... Might not be up very fast, school starts this week. See ya soon!