Note: I'm changing this around a bit. I'm only going to focus on Hugo's, Thomas's, and Geddoe's POVs, because writers block has hit me when I was writing for Chris(That and the fact that she isn't one of my more... favored... characters...) . She will still be incorporated into the story somehow, but I don't know how...
Shadow's Abyss
Chapter 1-B Geddoe: Troubles in Yaza
Celebrations hadn't ended early for some members of the Harmonian Southern Frontier Defense Force, so it seemed. Ace was having one hell of a time trying to drag Joker out of bed, at about three hours to noontime.
He has been trying to get Joker out of bed for an hour, but was failing miserably. "Arg! Wake up old man!" Joker opened a weary eye, and sat up. "What?" He asked drearily, and shook his head. "We are leaving, remember?" Ace said, furrowing his eyebrows. "Oh yes, that's right... Now get out!"
Ace growled, and stormed out of the room, and went to gather up the rest of the sleeping members, if they were still asleep.
Aila had decided to stick with them, for reasons only Ace was too thickheaded to see. She trotted up to stand next to Queen, who was standing in the courtyard. "Where is everyone?" Aila asked loudly. Queen turned around, and shrugged. "They should be here soon enough. See, here comes the simpleton, Ace," she said this loud enough for Ace to hear. Aila giggled slightly, and watched as an aggravated Ace came around.
"Were you able to wake up Joker?" Queen asked, a hand on her hip. "Yeah, yeah." He said, stretching.
Geddoe appeared a few minutes later, followed by Joker. "Are we ready to leave?" Geddoe asked, looking from Ace, to Queen, to Aila, to Joker. "Yeah, we should be. Where's Jacques?" Queen asked.
"Here." Said a male's voice. Jacques wandered out from behind one of the stores, and walked up to stand not to far away from Aila. "Ok, then let's get a move on. ... Where are we going first, boss?" Ace asked.
Geddoe turned his head in Ace's direction, "Brass Castle first."
They left after a few other arrangements, including stopping by Karaya for supplies on their way to Caleria.
The wind had picked up relatively fast out on the Yaza Plains, and the crew was way behind schedule. Monsters could be seen crawling out of their holes, and many seemed to want to attack them. Aila notched an arrow, and pointed her bow in the direction of a blue dragon that had suddenly attacked, not to mention two green and white birds.
The monsters on the plains seemed to have gained a large amount of intelligence lately. They were seen from far distances, gathering into groups and flying or running southwest, towards the crew's destination. Only the monsters they came across stopped to fight, many getting killed on the spot.
Aila shoot yet another arrow as a rabid bunny jumped out at her. Geddoe and Queen each had a small dragon to worry about, and Joker, Jacques, and Ace all had a small band of birds pecking at them.
"We'll never get to Brass Castle at this rate!" Complained Ace after the fighting, folding his arms over his chest. "We have only gone across half the distance sense noon, and it's nearly dusk!"
"We might have to find a place to hid close to here and camp the night out." Geddoe reasoned after a few moments of silence. "With the amount of monsters out?" Queen asked, looking around.
"Why are a majority of the creatures going in the direction of Brass Castle, anyway?" Joker wondered aloud. Geddoe turned around, thinking to himself.
"It feels... Like there are evil spirits about..." Aila said quietly, looking about. "Evil... Spirits?" Ace said in disbelief, looking at her. Jacques also glanced over.
"Yeah, and the earthly spirits are distraught. They say there is something horrible in the land," Aila said, putting her hand to her mouth for but a moment. Ace opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
"Anyway, before it gets too dark, we should find a place to camp out. Unless you want to travel through the night." Geddoe said, turning around again to face the rest of the group.
"Either choice would be dangerous, why don't we just found a cover of trees? I mean, we are close to the forest borders." Queen suggested.
Aila nodded at her suggestion, "That would be a good idea. Trees provide better shield from the elements then when out in the open."
"Ok. Let's move." Geddoe said as he started off towards the nearest grouping of trees.
The short trip to a grove of trees, elm-like trees to be precise, was short indeed. Most of the trees didn't go far up before the branches started to become gnarled, and split up. Perfect for someone to climb up and sleep or sit in one. And the branches were thick enough to support any one of them. The branches also were covered with enough vegetation to protect them fairly well from rain and wind.
Which was a good thing. The moon was fully visible from their point in the grove, yet dark, gray swirling clouds soon took refuge in the sky. "Ahhh... Damn, it looks like it's going to rain," Ace groaned loudly, and sat down under a thick branch.
Queen and Geddoe relieved their travelling packs by another tree, and Queen looked up. "Ya, and it looks like it might pour heavily too. Is the cover of the trees good enough?"
"Enough to not get soaked," Jacques said quietly, standing on a branch of one of the trees about seven feet above their heads, "The trees are thick...... Very little chance of rain getting through."
Aila look straight up at him, and shrugged, picking her spot to sit by the trunk of the tree Jacques was standing in.
Joker took his seat on a tuft of soft grass, and crossed his arms.
The wind started to pick up, blowing roughly through the small group of trees, and out on the plains, and the group can hear the rain splashing onto the canopy of the trees.
Jacques jumped down from his perch after the decreasing temperature dropped, and stood behind Aila as she was handed a blanket from Queen.
She pulled out yet another blanket, tossing it lazily over to Ace. Then she realized that there was only one blanket left.
"ACE!!" She cried out angrily, spinning around. "I thought you got ALL of our supplies?!"
"Uh... Er..." He hesitated, and smiled stupidly. "I guess I forgot..."
"Grr, your such a dumb ass, I TOLD you to pack extra provisions! I look in here, and we don't have enough to go around. Thickheaded forgetful sloth."
Aila stared at Queen, mouth hung opened slightly at the way she had gotten angered. "Uhm... How about a fire then? I'm sure it'll stay lit until we can fall asleep," Aila offered, "If those monsters out there will quiet down."
"That might work, hopefully the wind won't blow it out. But don't have the timber box for it, Ace," Queen looked over at him. They all could have sworn she had grown fangs right then.
"Uhm, uhm... Why don't we share the blankets then?" Aila blurted out with a visible shiver down her spine as the wind continued to roar. "Oooh? I don't know... Hmmm," Queen said, "Lets try to find something to help us get a fire started..."
"Oh! I know, someone can go gather up some wood, and sense Joker is sober, he can light a fire up for us," Ace said quickly. "Where did you find a brain?" Queen spat, and crossed her arms.
They got through the rest of the night, even though the constant roar of the wind would wake Queen or Ace, maybe Aila, up every now and then.