Chapter 2: Barthane Woods
The calm night breeze brought the scent of the nearby ocean onto the paths of the usually beautiful Barthane Woods, full of wafting pine needles mixing with cotton candy-colored cherry blossoms. However, in the dark of night, one couldn't see two feet in front of them. The only thing that was keeping Alina and the three other young adventurers from turning back was the fact that they had already gone too far into the forest to turn back now. It was smart for someone, however, to bring a flashlight.
"How are we supposed to see where we're going?" Tarenn asked the rest of the group as they trekked along the unleveled dirt road carved out of the land between heavy trees.
"Hello? The flashlight…" Isaac said, banging on the flashlight that was now going on and off, malfunctioning since its batteries were almost used up completely. Tarenn and Alina rolled her eyes, and the four of them continued on, down the road.
The road forked further ahead, with one trail leading off to the right, which looked like it headed back to Burgundie; the four headed on the trail heading to the left, and heading south. This would be all well and good, if they actually knew where they were going.
"Where are we going again?" Alina asked Isaac and Marcus, sure of the fact that at least one of them would know where they were going, but to Alina's shock, neither of them really knew. "We just thought we would wander around; see where each road takes us," Marcus said, shrugging his broad shoulders, to which both Alina and Tarenn freaked out. Tarenn hit Marcus on the back of the head, saying how completely stupid he was, while Alina walked ahead, not wanting to talk with either of them.
After Marcus received his just reward, Tarenn caught up with Alina, and began to strike in a conversation. "Listen," Tarenn said, "this will be much easier in the morning. Why don't we find a safe place to crash for the night?" Alina gave her a look of complete confusion; after all, where was there a place that was honestly safe. Tarenn began to say something, but before she could get a word out, Marcus quieted them, and pointed into the forest.
It seems as though a noise was coming through the forest, coming right for them. Knowing full well that they wouldn't have time to fun, each of them pulled out their respective weapons and prepared to knock whatever was coming their way into submission. Alina, with her ornate staff, was somewhat useless, but she was always good to have around just in case someone got hurt. Marcus, with his silvery-white sword complete with gold detailing, would definitely be in the front lines, as well as Isaac, who knew how to throw a good punch with his brass spiked knuckles that looked like they could cut a tree in half. Tarenn, however, decided to stick behind with Alina. After all, she carried a bow with her, which was suitable only for long ranges, and to top it all off, her skills with black magic spells required her to stay as far back as possible.
Two wild coyotes with long tongues hanging out came charging up from in the forests and jumped in the air, landing right near Marcus and Isaac. Taken aback, it took them a few seconds to react, just enough time for them to get a hit in on each of them. As if that wasn't bad enough, a wild plant-demon hybrid, a Mandragora, came blasting out of the ground with its fronds shaking.
"Leave me to the Mandragora, guys," Tarenn said to Marcus and Isaac, "I can take care of it, no problem." She then thought about it for a few seconds, and then started to charge up to implement one of her black magic spells. In true Black Mage fashion, one often builds up energy in the body by holding two fingers up to one's forehead, then when the required energy in the body was sufficient, the Black Mage would discharge it, letting go a large amount of energy usually related to one of eight elements, those being fire, ice, water, thunder, wind, earth, light, and darkness.
Being that the Mandragora was, in essence, a plant, Tarenn held two fingers up to her forehead. Marcus and Isaac continued to take damage from the Mandragora, firing seeds at them as though they were bullets coming out of a Tommy gun, as well as the coyotes. Even though they looked considerably weakened, after Arina used her staff to perform a Cure spell, using the same energy Tarenn was trying to build, Marcus and Isaac felt fine.
After a few seconds, both coyotes were defeated, laying on the ground, immobilized, and the Mandragora would be feeling the same sensation, as Tarenn released the energy built up inside her by using the Fire spell aimed right at the Mandragora. Taking a lot of damage, the Mandragora's fronds stopped shaking, but it still continued to fire seeds off. However, after Arina hit it with her staff, it shriveled up and fell to the ground.
As the two coyotes and the Mandragora lie on the ground, limp and lifeless, Isaac and Marcus took a closer look at the scene in front of them, and realized that these demented animals had seen battle before. "Hey guys, look at this," Isaac said, pointing to something on the ground. Picking it up from off the ground, he examined it further. It was a hemp-skin pouch with an opening at the top, sealed only by a black leather string. "Looks like this one nicked some gil," he said, opening the pouch to find a handful of Gil, the global currency, inside. "It must have gotten close enough to town before it got chased away."
Marcus bent over the other coyote, studying it carefully. Looking at it more carefully, he noticed a very similar pouch to the one that Isaac was holding. Sure enough, a few handfuls of Gil were clamoring inside, and when Marcus took one out to examine it, it only took him a few seconds to determine that it really was a Gil piece and some sort of counterfeit. "Has anyone looked at the Mandragora yet?"
Tarenn, getting impatient, starts to snap at Marcus. "Why don't you? You seem to know what the hell you're doing!" She puts her hands on her hips, then adds, "Oh wait, you don't even know where the hell we're going!" She then rolls her eyes, and starts to walk ahead, with Arina close behind her. Marcus and Isaac looked at each other and decided to go look at the Mandragora themselves, staying behind mostly because they were pissed at Tarenn for yelling at them.
About ten minutes later, Arina asked Tarenn if she knew where she was going. Glaring at her with a sense of disdain, Tarenn answered, "Actually, yes, I do. We're going to spend the night in a treehouse not far from here, unbeknownst to those two idiots back there," and pointing to Marcus and Isaac, who were now at a distance behind that was considerably large, rolled her eyes. "My sister told me about it; she built it when she left Burgundie." Tarenn's sister had left the isolated town for bigger and more exciting places, and in return, sent letters home of her adventures. Once in a while, her sister would come back to Burgundie and complain of how boring it really was, and between these conversations, she would often tell her sister of the secrets she left behind, and this was one of them. "It's a pretty big treehouse, and it's pretty safe; she said she left a Charm Crystal there to protect it from the elements." Charm Crystals, rather expensive magic tokens sold only in the largest markets, kept monsters at bay, so it acted as a sort-of safe zone. Most Charm Crystals are housed inside settlements so that monsters would stay clear from them, but once in a while, they would need to be replaced. Fortunately, they have at least a twenty-year lifespan, so the treehouse would be a definite rest stop.
"Good," Arina said, "because it's stupid to go any more than we have to in this dark of night." She blinked her eyes a few times and breathed heavily to keep from falling asleep, dragging her feet along. Occasionally she would look back at Marcus and Isaac, but every time she looked back, they stopped doing whatever they were doing at stared back at her. Annoyed, and a little angry at them for having made her leave town at night, she stopped staring back, but once Marcus and Isaac yelled for them, they turned around and noticed that another Mandragora had appeared, as well as two other monsters. One was a giant floating rock-thing with a face that bounced back and forth, with spikes on top. It looked like it was fuming, with smoke coming out everywhere. The other monster had no face, but rather, it looked like a set of floating irregularly-shaped yellow marbles with what seemed to be semi-inconspicuous lights shining around it.
"The one in the center," Tarenn said, pointing to the flaming floating rock, "is a Bomb. Be careful with that one. And that one over there," she said, pointing to the floating yellow marbles, "is an Elemental. It can only perform certain black magic spells. From the looks of it, it looks like it can only do Lighting attacks. I'll take care of it." She starts charging her energy up for another black magic spell, but before she can do that, the Elemental lets off a lightning spell, shocking Marcus as he slices through the Mandragora. "Ow, that stings!" Marcus screams as the Mandragora pulls its giant petal-mouth back further into its body, getting ready to perform some sort of powerful attack. After Isaac attacked the Mandragora, and Tarenn killed the Elemental with a Water spell, the Mandragora fired one green seed at Isaac. "Ugh! That really hurt!" he said, but that wasn't the worst of it. He suddenly grasped his stomach and started to wince in pain.
"You've been poisoned!" Arina screamed, and as Marcus sliced the Mandragora again, killing it, Arina starts to charge her staff up for a white magic spell. As Isaac winced in pain again, he set to work trying to kill off the Bomb, but all he did was get it angrier. After another attack by Marcus to it, the Bomb engorged up in size. "Careful!" Tarenn said cautiously, pointing at the Bomb as she's charging up for another black mage spell. "If it gets too big, it'll explode!" Marcus and Isaac's eyes widened considerably. It was at that point that Marcus and Isaac noticed the same semi-inconspicuous lights around Arina's staff and Tarenn. Marcus asked why it was so, and Tarenn told him he was a complete idiot and that it signifies that someone or something is trying to gather energy.
The Bomb, at this point, begins to glow with the same lights. Even though Tarenn weakened it considerably with a Blizzard spell, she didn't kill it all together, and the Bomb engorged itself again in size before letting off a Fire spell of its own. Isaac continued to wince, getting mowed over by the Bomb until Arina used a white magic spell on him. "Hey! I feel better!" he commented to Arina, who laughed, saying it was an Esuna spell, with the power to heal those feeling ill. Marcus struck the Bomb again, and it fell to the ground. Arina healed everyone with another Cure spell, Marcus and Isaac discovered more sacks of Gil, and a few bottles of healing potions as well. "The fluids are blue. Must be your run-of-the-mill healing potions," Isaac commented, swishing around the liquid inside one of the bottle. "Someone might have dropped them, and these monsters picked them up." He picked up all of them and remembered that he needed to pick up a bag in the next town, which, unfortunate to him, he wasn't sure of. Tarenn became angry again, but when she saw what looked to be a rope ladder ahead, she sighed in relief and ran over to it.
"Thank Valentina we've found it!" she said, placing her foot on the first wooden plank at the bottom of the ladder and started to climb up, grasping onto the brown weather-worn twine that held her. When Marcus and Isaac looked at her with confused glances, Arina laughed and told them what Tarenn told her.
"Okay, good idea," Marcus said, shrugging. "At least we have somewhere to sleep safely for one night." Isaac agreed, saying that Tarenn was a genius, which she appreciated greatly, saying so from two-thirds of the way up to the treehouse, and added that it would be better if we traveled the rest of the way in the morning. He then grabbed the ropes and held them steady while Tarenn climbed up the rest of the way, and then started to climb up himself. He then told Marcus to hold the bottom steady while Arina climbs up, and Marcus agreed, partly because he was the strongest and could pull himself up, and party because he had a nice view of Arina. So while Arina shimmied up the rope ladder, Marcus took full advantage of the view until Tarenn noticed what he was staring at, calling him a pervert. Arina gave him a nasty look and climbed up the rest of the way, and Marcus started to climb up when Tarenn started to yell at him again.
"Get up here, quick! There're four coyotes coming this way!" she screamed anxiously, and Marcus, seeing them off in the near distance, started to scurry up the ladder, pushing himself up onto each plank very quickly. As soon as Marcus reached the treehouse level, he and Isaac quickly pulled the rope ladder up and onto the treehouse deck, and as soon as the coyotes ran to the trees that the treehouse was perched on, they decided to give up, and ran back and through a clearing a few meters up. Arina chuckled, said that Marcus always knew how to get into danger, and then started to walk around the treehouse.
The treehouse itself was quite large for a treehouse – it had three rooms, all of quite a nice size. It actually was supported by several trees, with the deck on all of them, so one could imagine this treehouse was quite big. Inside were a kitchenette with a few cabinets, a stove, a sink, and no food anywhere except for tea bags, and a wooden plank table with a few chairs made out of bamboo. The next room was a simple one with a straw mat for a floor, with only a table off to one side, holding a tea pot and a few tea cups and two futons in a compartment off to the side, and of course the Charm Crystal, with its purple glow that emanated throughout the entire room, which was hanging over the table as a movable chandelier. The last room, separated by a partition, was a quaint hardwood-floored bathroom with a toilet that emptied out into the ground, a table with a bowl to put water from the kitchen in, and a giant relaxing bathtub that stood on a platform a few steps above everything else in the bathroom. It was rather like one of those nice luxury cabins up in the northern mountains, or at least that's what we've heard from Tarenn's sister. Arina continued to wander around the deck and the rooms until Marcus came into the central room and started to scratch his head and think.
"You do realize there are only two futons, right?" Marcus said to her, smiling a little, because he knew he'd get to share a futon with at least one of the girls. He secretly had a bit of a crush on Arina herself, but he'd never tell her. "We're sharing?"
"Looks like it," Tarenn said, disappointed. "I know one thing. You're either sleeping with Arina or the floor, not with me." She folded her arms in disgust again. "Not after that ladder incident." After Marcus begged Arina to let him sleep on the futon with her, and after several bouts of laughter from Tarenn and Isaac, Arina accepted, and Marcus stopped whining.
They settled in quickly and got to bed as soon as they could, because they all wanted to get up and out as early as possible. As Arina fell quickly asleep with Marcus breathing calmly next to her, she found herself in a vivid dream. She was walking down a beautiful hallway, with paintings spaced evenly in the carved white mahogany walls. Windows shined natural light from the sun into the hallway, and as she walked down the hallway, she realized she was looking through a white laced veil. She looked down and realized that she was wearing a wedding dress, which was odd, considering the fact that she had no idea where she was. She kept walking until she saw someone further down the the hallway next to a set of giant double doors, and when she ran to see who the person was, she saw it to be her father, wearing a tuxedo with towels. "You look good all dressed up, Father," she said, smiling, to which her father could only smile back as his eyes were starting to water. She laughed, hugged her father, and as he opened the doors to reveal a giant glowing light, she stepped inside and closed her eyes to protect them from the blinding light.
She opened her eyes to find something totally different. She was in a completely dark and dingy basement, or at least she thought she was, even though the room she entered was gargantuan. She didn't really see much until a minute later when she took a few steps and a light was turned on, a giant floodlight from the ceiling that looked like it was an infinite distance away. She looked around – she was right about it being dingy; the walls were of a stone material. She realized that she was on a landing a few steps above a stone floor. That wasn't the worst part, as she saw in the middle of the dungeon what seemed to be a giant torture device, with two people huddled around it and a third person strapped onto a metal panel set vertically with two large rotating large rings going around and around the panel and the person. This wouldn't be so bad, but the rings sent a wave of electricity into the person on the metal panel. Arina was horrified to see what was happening to the person, and when the two others left the room by a wooden plank door on the other side of the room, Arina ran up to the machine in preparations to shut it down when her eyes opened up in horror. She had seen her own self on the torture device, complete with blood-letting cuts on her forehead and through her body. She wanted to scream, just to try and get anything out, but before she could do that…
Arina woke up in a cold sweat, and sat up a bit, before realizing that she couldn't. She looked down to see that Marcus had rolled over and now had his arm around her, cuddling her. Too tired to wake him up, and too freaked out about her vivid dream to care, she just laid there, trying to think of what her dream could mean, and just when she thought she would fall asleep again, Marcus woke up all groggy, realized that his arm was around Arina, and quickly retracted it. "You seem freaked out," Marcus said, smiling at her and trying to avoid the awkward conversation that they would definitely have about the arm thing. "Have a nightmare?" Arina nodded, then told Marcus about her dream.
"Seems a little strange, but what dream isn't?" Marcus said, trying to act all philosophical. "You haven't been one for prophetic dreams, have you not?" he asked Arina, to which she said no. He thought about it for a few more seconds, then shrugged. "It's probably nothing. Just a good old fashioned nightmare."
Isaac and Tarenn woke up about twenty minutes later, and as soon as we washed up and had a cup to tea to wake all of us up, we set out, throwing the rope ladder down. After all four of us climbed down, we stretched a little, and then we realized we had no idea where we were going. Well, at least three of us didn't know.
"We're going to Lapasca. You know, the seaport," Tarenn informed us, since the rest of us had no ideas. "We can find some better supplies there." Marcus, Isaac and I all looked at each other, shrugged, and followed Tarenn down the dirt road to Lapasca. About three hours, three dead Mandragoras, two Bombs, and several sacks of Gil later, they arrived at the northern gate of the semi-busy town of Lapasca. A guard, which could have easily doubled as a sailor on one of the ferry ships that come in to Lapasca often, smiled and waved at them as they walked through two sets of gates into town.