I've skipped the part where they get Gnome, and we're now in the Molebear Highlands.
NEW UPDATE: Thank you all for your comments, it helps me to get inspired. Anyway, I'm going to
answer some burning questions here, like the Riesz/Hawkeye relationship. Normally, I let the
story flow as it chooses, with little interference, but I've found that I can extend more and
more of my conscious will into it as I grow as a writer. I actually *chose* to make Riesz and
Hawkeye fall for each other as quickly as they have, and I have fully taken into account the
inevitable conflict at the middle of the story.
As for the other characters... ^_^ well, you'll just have to wait and see, won't you? I'm no
fangirl to spoil my own story while it's still in the making!
Might and Magic
"Ouch! I think I broke a nail!" Angela rubbed her behind indignantly. "Remind me to whack
that Bon Jour a good one if we see him again."
"I'll do that, if I can ever get my stomach to sit still again." Hawkeye was looking a bit pale
around the edges, beneath his tan.
"We're lucky Gnome softened the fall for us, or we'd have a lot worse than just some indigestion
and a cracked cuticle."
Riesz used her spear like a crutch and pulled herself to her feet.
:You are all right?: The boisterous earth spirit was still bouncing around them frantically.
"Yes, we are. Thank you, Gnome." The amazon bowed courteously, and the elemental disappeared
at her affirmative. "All right, you two, get up. We have to get to Forcena before dark. I
seriously doubt that this place is friendly to travelers at night." She surveyed the endless
hills around them, then turned to glare once again at the others, still on the ground.
"That crazy inventor was friendly, and look where it got us!" Angela said waspishly, but she
and Hawkeye were already standing up.
"It got us over the lake, okay? And from what I remember of my geography lessons, these hills
are right next to Forcena!"
Riesz helped them to their feet, and they were soon making their way down the side of the great
hill. However, when they had reached the bottom, they realized that they were totally lost.
All around them was a myriad of hills that looked exactly like the one they had just descended.
They were at a loss as to what direction the grasslands kingdom lay in, but were soon distracted
by a loud shout.
"HEEEEEY!"
All three of the travelers scoured the area warily, searching for any enemies. The deep,
booming quality of the voice was vaguely familiar, but they could not understand why. Then,
they heard it again.
"Hello down there!"
Riesz groaned as she recognized the voice, and Angela's face lost any trace of expression.
Charging down one of the other hills, in full, clanking battle mail, was the large warrior they
knew as Duran, and he was making enough noise to have roused some of the zombies back at the
Cave of Waterfalls.
"I thought we lost him back at Jadd." Muttered the amazon. Angela said nothing
The big fighter somehow came to a stop at the bottom, and presented a lively grin to the three
companions.
"Glad I found you," he said, "it's real easy to get lost around here, if you don't know where
you're going."
"You know how to get to Forcena?" Hawkeye asked eagerly. Riesz was looking murderous, and he
was not sure about how Angela looked. Either way, he wanted to get moving, before one of them,
or both, exploded. Back in the caves, he had felt comfortable aiding them in handling their
fear, but anger was beyond him. He just hoped that nothing would come of the way both of them
were seething.
"Of course I do! I live around here, remember? I'll have us there before dinner!"
He clambered off, still clanking, now humming tunelessly to himself.
"Wait." Angela said. The warrior stopped, and turned around warily.
"Are you going to kick me again?"
That got a smile out of her. Half a smile at any rate.
"How did you get here? I thought you missed the boat out of Jadd."
"I did." He replied. When he did not elaborate, Angela grew impatient.
"So how did you get here? Did you fly?"
"Close. I borrowed one of the big birds those freaks use to get around. They're not nearly as
bad as they look, rocs, at least once you get to know them." With that, he turned away and
marched off on an invisible path, still humming.
"I think we should follow him." Hawkeye said cautiously. "He is from around here, after all,
so he probably knows his way around. We'll be sleeping on the ground if we don't get there
soon."
"How do we know that he's even telling the truth?" Riesz replied scathingly. She had been
absent when Duran had insulted Angela, but once she found out, she was incensed.
"Does it matter?" Hawkeye retorted. "Either way, we'd still be out longer than we wanted, so
we might as well take the chance! What do you think, Angela?"
They turned to her, and she shook her head.
"I can't decide. I don't know what to think of him."
"Are you guys coming?" Duran was good distance away, he traveled much faster than his bumbling
appearance let on.
"Let's just go." Angela said, after a moment of awkward silence. "We can't do any worse than
we would if we were by ourselves."
Riesz bit back a sharp reply, and Hawkeye heaved a sigh of relief. They hurried to catch up to
the fighter, who had disappeared from sight. They rounded a hill, and there he was.
"Knew you'd come. Let's go." He set off at an even quicker pace, and they were hard-pressed to
follow.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The fires were visible a good distance away from the city. None of the little band wanted to
think about what they would find there, yet their minds kept conjuring up images that only grew
more and more gruesome as they approached. When they were finally there, they discovered that
the great gates that had protected the city from attack countless times were completely and
utterly destroyed.
"Jon! Davyd!" Duran raced past the sundered gates and over to a pair of felled men. Riesz
surveyed the devastation coolly, and decided that siege engines had not caused it.
"Altena must have attacked." She said, her voice kept carefully controlled.
The other two nodded their agreement. A couple of the houses were charred, and there was not a
soul to be seen on the streets.
Except for the fallen gate guards. Angela mustered her courage, and made her slow way to one of
the men. What she found horrified and terrified her. The man's features were obscured
completely, it was as if someone had poured pure fire over his face. His skin had gotten so hot,
so quickly, that it had actually melted, instead of burning. She knelt over the corpse,
ignoring the tears that were welling up in her eyes, and gasped. The man was somehow still
alive! He reached for her feebly with a charred hand, and managed a few words.
"The king...Save the king...Go to the castle..." He coughed, and Angela wished that she could
somehow comfort him.
"Could you, hold me?" He asked, his mangled eyes full of pleading. The eyes were dark, he
certainly couldn't see her. Yet he somehow knew she was there. Glad to be able to do something,
she pulled the man into a gentle embrace, and held him until his last breath expired. Someone
coughed politely, and she looked up, setting the poor man down like he was made of glass.
Hawkeye was standing there, with Riesz beside him. Duran was still prostrated over the body of
his dead friend.
"I think...that someone else needs your help." Hawkeye gestured at the weeping fighter, and
Angela nodded. She got up, and went over to him.
"He was just a kid! He and I, we used to try to sneak past the palace guards when we were
little."
It was terrible to see him there, a warrior mourning the loss of a friend and comrade, but
Angela came to him anyway. She placed a hand on his shoulder, then on his chin, and pulled his
face around so she could see his eyes. His brown eyes were red with weeping, and tears stained
his tanned cheeks.
"He's gone, Duran. There's nothing you can do to bring him back."
His eyes went wild with fury, but she braved his rage, knowing that it sprang from his grief.
"What do you know? You're just a girl! A princess, too. Of all the useless..."
"Duran!" Angela did not shout, but he fell silent as if she had. "You can't bring him back,
but you can avenge him."
He stared at her, not understanding.
"You can get the ones that did this. But..." And she put up a finger to stop him from running
off. "You can't do it alone. You need our help, and we need a plan. So don't go charging off
with like your head's just been chopped off!"
Since that was plainly what he had been planning on doing, he said nothing, but Angela sensed
that she would have to act quickly, or she would lose him.
"Good. All right, can you tell us how the castle is set up?"
"It has one entrance, the main gate, and then it splits off into two parts, the west and east
wing. There are lots of floors, and the King's chamber is on the top." Duran's voice had a
peculiar, detached quality about it, as if he was not really thinking about what he was saying.
"That's where we'll find the ones that did this to your friends." Angela turned to the others.
"Well, I'm not much of a tactician, what do you guys think?"
Hawkeye brushed back an errant strand of dark hair, and frowned. "I'd suggest that we split up.
We need to make sure that no one gets to the king, so we'll have to separate and catch them all
that way."
"And we're fighting magic, so we need to have one person in each group that can counter magic."
Riesz fingered the tip of her spear to be sure of its sharpness. She looked at Angela
green eyes sparkling. "What do you think we should do, magician?"
Angela plowed blithely forward, ignoring Riesz's heated gaze, "Well, I'm obviously one of the
mage-snipers. Which of you can take of them quickly enough?"
"I'll go with Riesz." Hawkeye was running a dart through his fingers dextrously, and his grin
was a bit feral. "They'll never even see us coming. You take plowboy, you can counter their
magic."
Duran was so immersed in his grief that he did not even notice the jibe. He was just looking
up at the castle frantically, hand at his sheathed blade.
"All right then, we'll do it this way. Duran and I will crash into the west wing as loud as
possible. Hopefully that will draw in most of the soldiers. I'm pretty sure I can overpower
anyone we come across, since I've got two elementals behind me. Hawk, you and Riesz can use the
diversion we create to take the east wing by stealth. We'll meet at the King's throne room.
Everyone got it?"
Hawkeye and Riesz nodded. When Duran did not answer, she pinched him viciously on the arm.
"Ouch! What was that for?"
"We're going. Stop moping around."
Riesz, sensitive to the ebb and flow of Mana energy, heard power beneath Angela's words.
"Okay! Let's go!" The big warrior charged off, but not in the fatalistic, manic way that Riesz
would have expected.
Angela must have meddled with his memories. No grief-stricken boy runs off to avenge his friend
like it was a game! What's she up to?
"Riesz, come on. We need to be ready to go when the guards go after them."
The thief grabbed her arm and pulled her along with him. The great stone castle loomed ominously
before them.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"Report!"
The female soldier cowered a little as the tall, blond man bent his full attention upon her. He
was clad in a blue robe with a gold tassle as a belt, but the most distinctive piece of his
apparel was the long cloak that flew out behind him. It was a brilliant crimson so bright that
it was supposed to blind the viewer if he or she stared at it too eagerly. The soldier was
trying desperately not to look at him or his cloak.
"The front gate has been taken, sir! Moderate casualties, east and west corridors under siege,
sir!"
"Excellent. I'll pay a visit to his Majesty."
The Wizard of the Red Lotus whirled to face the gate, and vanished. The soldier sighed, and
went quickly to join her comrades in the siege of the castle.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"That was Koren, wasn't it?" Riesz kept her voice to a low whisper, and she was nearly on top of
him. She and Hawkeye were crowded into a tiny crevice, waiting for the frenzied guards to clear
the area.
"I think so. I've never met him. Angela knew him, but she doesn't talk about him much. Duran
was mentioning something about a wizard in a red cape in the jail, but I didn't really take him
seriously. He seemed really mad at the bloke. Wonder why?"
"Who cares? Let's just get on with this. See, all the guards are gone."
The guards were indeed gone, and the amazon attempted to lift herself out of their mutual hiding
place.
"Hey! Watch it!"
Both of them tumbled out in a tangle of bodies as Riesz pulled Hawkeye out with her. They
struggled to separate themselves, but that only served to make the situation even worse. As they
writhed, Hawkeye felt Riesz's warmth enveloping him. It was not an unpleasant sensation.
Hey, this isn't so bad. he thought. Riesz was warm, and her warmth was comfortable, like the
sun on the desert when it first rises, and the air is still cool from the night. She smelled
of leather and oil, as any good fighter should smell. He felt himself strangely drawn to her.
He had never felt this way before, not even with Jessica.
Riesz struggled with the young man intertwined with her limbs, but she was concealing something
with all her fighting. When they finally managed to separate themselves from each other, she
stood up and brushed herself off, praying that Hawkeye was not feeling the same thing she was
at that moment.
"Riesz...I..." Fearing what she would see, she turned, and he was there, seated on the marble
floor still. As she watched, he extended a golden hand, and slowly began to stand. Her heart's
beat quickened, time slowed, and all of her senses seemed to be attuned to the beautiful, young
man that was reaching longingly for her. Warmth ran up and down her entire body like liquid
fire. The tips of her fingers tingled, and she felt blood rush to her face. She took in his
fingers, so long and slender, and then the strong arms that had saved her from death many times.
Then she followed the arm up to his face, his angular, tanned countenance. Black eyes gazed at
her, and she felt something resonate between them.
No, this can't be happening! We have a mission to complete, duties to fulfill, we don't have
time to fall in love!
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Angela knocked away the blast savagely almost as soon as it left the magician's staff, and Duran
coldly cut the doll to pieces. It disappeared with a soft bang, but there were more coming.
"How many are there?" Duran said, exasperated, after yet another onslaught had been repelled.
"I've counted at least thirty since we broke into the courtyard, and that doesn't include the
unicorn statues you cut apart."
The big youth blinked a couple of times, he had not expected his companion to keep track of the
enemy. Hell, he hadn't, and he was a trained warrior! He took a long look at her during one of
the infrequent pauses in the flow of battle, really looked at her, and found that he very much
liked what he saw.
When they had been imprisoned in the dark of the Castle City's jails, Duran had not really given
much thought to the voice that lilted like a cat's purr, or the delicate manner with which she
breathed. Even when he had seen her in the light, he had only been stricken by her physical
beauty. For a moment, she looked almost like a vengeful goddess, poised to deliver holy
retribution on the ones who violated her followers.
Then, her eyes, so disturbingly golden, met his, and she smirked. She twitched her hips just so,
and he knew that she was not the pampered princess he had thought.
"Like what you see?"
Angela had caught the oaf ogling her, and made use of the situation expertly. She would do
everything in her power to keep him from breaking the bonds she had laid about his grief.
So she wiggled her hips a little to get his attention, then held it with the golden gaze he
seemed to be so fascinated by. But all her concentration shattered when the voice rang down
her shared bond with the elementals.
:No! We don't have time to fall in love!:
Riesz?
She pushed away from Duran impatiently, and he frowned at her oddly. Ignoring him, she listened
for Riesz's voice to call again. When nothing more came to her, Angela decided to consult the
faerie.
:I heard, Angela. It is Riesz, though I can't reach her. She is in turmoil, and I'm not
certain why. I can't reach Hawkeye, either.:
"But what's wrong? What's Riesz thinking?"
:I told you, I can't tell! But I should think that it would be fairly obvious, since the only
one near to Riesz is Hawk!:
For the first time, the faerie sounded angry, and had to visibly force herself to calm down.
"What are you saying?" Angela continued blithely, and Duran snorted. The princess whirled on
him. "What was that for?"
"You're dense about the weirdest things, princess."
And he would say no more.
:At any rate, the monsters have stopped attacking, I think that we should head toward the Throne
Room.: The faerie disappeared, and Angela just followed Duran, mentally swearing at her own
stupidity. It was Hawkeye that Riesz was pining over.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"We can't tell them about this." Riesz said quickly, as she stood up with equal agility.
"I think it's too late for that." Hawkeye said. "I think they already know."
"But you have a fiance! I have a kingdom to rule! We can't..."
"No, we can't. That, at least we both agree on." Hawkeye's features clouded, and he retreated
from her to put up the facade of serenity once more.
"So what do we do?" asked the amazon, now desperate, caught between longing and frustration.
"Nothing. We move on. Let's go. We can probably still meet them before the Throne Room."
So they kept moving. Riesz hoped that concentrating on the way her bootheels clicked on the
marble floors would prevent her from hearing the sound of Hawkeye's low breathing.
What is happening to me? I'm no silly, lovesick, vapid lady-creature! What's wrong with me? I
will have to marry to the advantage of my kingdom, not fall into hopeless love with a...a...
thief!
She had once thought that there was no more room in her heart. Between Eliot, her deceased
parents, and the kingdom of Laurant, she had believed her heart filled, with no room for a third
love. Her family and her people, life had once been simple for her.
Angela and Duran were there when Riesz and Hawkeye arrived, both of them looked exhausted.
"Where were you two? We've been waiting ages! Never mind, let's hurry in, maybe the King is
still alive." Angela put a hand on the large doorknob, and began to turn it, but Duran's hand
whipped out suddenly, ensnaring her hand in a lunatic grasp. She cried out, but not from the
pain, the fighter had broken his mental bonds.
"The King? Davyd...Jon... You, you bewitched me!"
She met his eyes squarely, and the other two were poised to intervene should she need their
help.
"Yes, and I'm not sorry I did it."
"How...how could you..."
"Paralyze your mind? When you were about to go and get yourself killed? I don't think that
magic was the only thing clouding your mind, Duran of Forcena."
She shook off his hand, and opened the door.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"So, you are King Richard? And the Knights of Gold? Hah!"
The Wizard of the Red Lotus stood before the great throne, laughing heartily at the middle-aged
man seated there. Two men lay beside the throne, already prostrated by Koren's powerful magic.
"Yes, I am. And you are the Crimson Wizard, of whom I've heard so much?"
Koren laughed again, and the King shuddered. The sound was high, piercing, and the man's high
tenor was not pleasant to listen to.
"Of course! I have been sent by your lover to slay you by fire. Ironic, no?"
The King took in his breath sharply. The red-cloaked wizard was shrewd, he knew of Richard's
affair with Valda.
"Ah, struck a chord, have I? A sensitive spot? So sorry. Any last words before you die, old
man?"
"STOP!"
A young woman's voice thundered through the room, and Koren whipped around. Angela stood there,
hands on her shapely hips, golden eyes burning with suppressed rage. The wizard noticed three
other figures behind her, but that was all, before the princess brandished her staff and began
pushing toward him.
"Koren..." she growled, deep in her throat. The sound made Koren shiver. When she swung at
him, he nearly did not dodge, he was so distracted.
"Hah!" he laughed. "Fancy meeting you here, princess! And your little friends!" He turned
his gaze to the King, "I suppose we'll have to wait to settle this, dear Richard, until the
babies have gone to sleep." He cackled one last time, and disappeared as a ray of holy light
seared the spot he might have occupied.
"Red Wizard!!! I'll never forgive you!" Duran broke past Riesz and Hawkeye, and hammered down
the corridor toward one of the windows. His progress stopped abruptly when Angela hit him
solidly on the head with her staff.
"Get some sense into that thick skull of yours!"
"Yes, Duran, please try to calm yourself." The King rose from the throne, and came down from the
dais to touch his friend's son on the forehead. "You and your friends have done much for this
kingdom, but that wizard is beyond you for now."
Duran made mutinous noises but, nursing his aching skull, submitted, and knelt at his liege's
knees.
"Who exactly was that wizard, anyway?" Riesz asked, "Angela didn't exactly have a lot of time
to explain while we were planning to enter the castle."
The King looked up at the amazon, as if noticing her for the first time, but answered quickly
enough.
"That was the Wizard of the Red Lotus, Koren Lioutte, master of fire, Magic Protector of
Altena..."
"The Crimson Mage, of course, Valda's little pet." Angela interrupted before the King could go
further. "He has athousand names, none of them earned honestly. He couldn't even use magic
before, he just sprangup as the best magician in Altena and Mother's advisor, all at once."
Riesz could hear a note of bitterness in Angela's words, and a bit of jealousy for a position
that the princess should have held for her mother. But she was surprised to see the King's
expression after Angela's words.
"You lived in Altena? You know Valda?"
Riesz rather thought that he looked like someone had just dropped the wrong end of a poleaxe on
his head.
"Yes, she's my mother."
"Valda had a daughter?!!"
************
Okay, I'll stop there. I saw some major missing parts about Angela's lineage in the game, so I'm
going to fill them in my way. Guess who the father is?
Anyway, thanks for the comments, guys, they help a lot.
~Truewind
NEW UPDATE: Thank you all for your comments, it helps me to get inspired. Anyway, I'm going to
answer some burning questions here, like the Riesz/Hawkeye relationship. Normally, I let the
story flow as it chooses, with little interference, but I've found that I can extend more and
more of my conscious will into it as I grow as a writer. I actually *chose* to make Riesz and
Hawkeye fall for each other as quickly as they have, and I have fully taken into account the
inevitable conflict at the middle of the story.
As for the other characters... ^_^ well, you'll just have to wait and see, won't you? I'm no
fangirl to spoil my own story while it's still in the making!
Might and Magic
"Ouch! I think I broke a nail!" Angela rubbed her behind indignantly. "Remind me to whack
that Bon Jour a good one if we see him again."
"I'll do that, if I can ever get my stomach to sit still again." Hawkeye was looking a bit pale
around the edges, beneath his tan.
"We're lucky Gnome softened the fall for us, or we'd have a lot worse than just some indigestion
and a cracked cuticle."
Riesz used her spear like a crutch and pulled herself to her feet.
:You are all right?: The boisterous earth spirit was still bouncing around them frantically.
"Yes, we are. Thank you, Gnome." The amazon bowed courteously, and the elemental disappeared
at her affirmative. "All right, you two, get up. We have to get to Forcena before dark. I
seriously doubt that this place is friendly to travelers at night." She surveyed the endless
hills around them, then turned to glare once again at the others, still on the ground.
"That crazy inventor was friendly, and look where it got us!" Angela said waspishly, but she
and Hawkeye were already standing up.
"It got us over the lake, okay? And from what I remember of my geography lessons, these hills
are right next to Forcena!"
Riesz helped them to their feet, and they were soon making their way down the side of the great
hill. However, when they had reached the bottom, they realized that they were totally lost.
All around them was a myriad of hills that looked exactly like the one they had just descended.
They were at a loss as to what direction the grasslands kingdom lay in, but were soon distracted
by a loud shout.
"HEEEEEY!"
All three of the travelers scoured the area warily, searching for any enemies. The deep,
booming quality of the voice was vaguely familiar, but they could not understand why. Then,
they heard it again.
"Hello down there!"
Riesz groaned as she recognized the voice, and Angela's face lost any trace of expression.
Charging down one of the other hills, in full, clanking battle mail, was the large warrior they
knew as Duran, and he was making enough noise to have roused some of the zombies back at the
Cave of Waterfalls.
"I thought we lost him back at Jadd." Muttered the amazon. Angela said nothing
The big fighter somehow came to a stop at the bottom, and presented a lively grin to the three
companions.
"Glad I found you," he said, "it's real easy to get lost around here, if you don't know where
you're going."
"You know how to get to Forcena?" Hawkeye asked eagerly. Riesz was looking murderous, and he
was not sure about how Angela looked. Either way, he wanted to get moving, before one of them,
or both, exploded. Back in the caves, he had felt comfortable aiding them in handling their
fear, but anger was beyond him. He just hoped that nothing would come of the way both of them
were seething.
"Of course I do! I live around here, remember? I'll have us there before dinner!"
He clambered off, still clanking, now humming tunelessly to himself.
"Wait." Angela said. The warrior stopped, and turned around warily.
"Are you going to kick me again?"
That got a smile out of her. Half a smile at any rate.
"How did you get here? I thought you missed the boat out of Jadd."
"I did." He replied. When he did not elaborate, Angela grew impatient.
"So how did you get here? Did you fly?"
"Close. I borrowed one of the big birds those freaks use to get around. They're not nearly as
bad as they look, rocs, at least once you get to know them." With that, he turned away and
marched off on an invisible path, still humming.
"I think we should follow him." Hawkeye said cautiously. "He is from around here, after all,
so he probably knows his way around. We'll be sleeping on the ground if we don't get there
soon."
"How do we know that he's even telling the truth?" Riesz replied scathingly. She had been
absent when Duran had insulted Angela, but once she found out, she was incensed.
"Does it matter?" Hawkeye retorted. "Either way, we'd still be out longer than we wanted, so
we might as well take the chance! What do you think, Angela?"
They turned to her, and she shook her head.
"I can't decide. I don't know what to think of him."
"Are you guys coming?" Duran was good distance away, he traveled much faster than his bumbling
appearance let on.
"Let's just go." Angela said, after a moment of awkward silence. "We can't do any worse than
we would if we were by ourselves."
Riesz bit back a sharp reply, and Hawkeye heaved a sigh of relief. They hurried to catch up to
the fighter, who had disappeared from sight. They rounded a hill, and there he was.
"Knew you'd come. Let's go." He set off at an even quicker pace, and they were hard-pressed to
follow.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The fires were visible a good distance away from the city. None of the little band wanted to
think about what they would find there, yet their minds kept conjuring up images that only grew
more and more gruesome as they approached. When they were finally there, they discovered that
the great gates that had protected the city from attack countless times were completely and
utterly destroyed.
"Jon! Davyd!" Duran raced past the sundered gates and over to a pair of felled men. Riesz
surveyed the devastation coolly, and decided that siege engines had not caused it.
"Altena must have attacked." She said, her voice kept carefully controlled.
The other two nodded their agreement. A couple of the houses were charred, and there was not a
soul to be seen on the streets.
Except for the fallen gate guards. Angela mustered her courage, and made her slow way to one of
the men. What she found horrified and terrified her. The man's features were obscured
completely, it was as if someone had poured pure fire over his face. His skin had gotten so hot,
so quickly, that it had actually melted, instead of burning. She knelt over the corpse,
ignoring the tears that were welling up in her eyes, and gasped. The man was somehow still
alive! He reached for her feebly with a charred hand, and managed a few words.
"The king...Save the king...Go to the castle..." He coughed, and Angela wished that she could
somehow comfort him.
"Could you, hold me?" He asked, his mangled eyes full of pleading. The eyes were dark, he
certainly couldn't see her. Yet he somehow knew she was there. Glad to be able to do something,
she pulled the man into a gentle embrace, and held him until his last breath expired. Someone
coughed politely, and she looked up, setting the poor man down like he was made of glass.
Hawkeye was standing there, with Riesz beside him. Duran was still prostrated over the body of
his dead friend.
"I think...that someone else needs your help." Hawkeye gestured at the weeping fighter, and
Angela nodded. She got up, and went over to him.
"He was just a kid! He and I, we used to try to sneak past the palace guards when we were
little."
It was terrible to see him there, a warrior mourning the loss of a friend and comrade, but
Angela came to him anyway. She placed a hand on his shoulder, then on his chin, and pulled his
face around so she could see his eyes. His brown eyes were red with weeping, and tears stained
his tanned cheeks.
"He's gone, Duran. There's nothing you can do to bring him back."
His eyes went wild with fury, but she braved his rage, knowing that it sprang from his grief.
"What do you know? You're just a girl! A princess, too. Of all the useless..."
"Duran!" Angela did not shout, but he fell silent as if she had. "You can't bring him back,
but you can avenge him."
He stared at her, not understanding.
"You can get the ones that did this. But..." And she put up a finger to stop him from running
off. "You can't do it alone. You need our help, and we need a plan. So don't go charging off
with like your head's just been chopped off!"
Since that was plainly what he had been planning on doing, he said nothing, but Angela sensed
that she would have to act quickly, or she would lose him.
"Good. All right, can you tell us how the castle is set up?"
"It has one entrance, the main gate, and then it splits off into two parts, the west and east
wing. There are lots of floors, and the King's chamber is on the top." Duran's voice had a
peculiar, detached quality about it, as if he was not really thinking about what he was saying.
"That's where we'll find the ones that did this to your friends." Angela turned to the others.
"Well, I'm not much of a tactician, what do you guys think?"
Hawkeye brushed back an errant strand of dark hair, and frowned. "I'd suggest that we split up.
We need to make sure that no one gets to the king, so we'll have to separate and catch them all
that way."
"And we're fighting magic, so we need to have one person in each group that can counter magic."
Riesz fingered the tip of her spear to be sure of its sharpness. She looked at Angela
green eyes sparkling. "What do you think we should do, magician?"
Angela plowed blithely forward, ignoring Riesz's heated gaze, "Well, I'm obviously one of the
mage-snipers. Which of you can take of them quickly enough?"
"I'll go with Riesz." Hawkeye was running a dart through his fingers dextrously, and his grin
was a bit feral. "They'll never even see us coming. You take plowboy, you can counter their
magic."
Duran was so immersed in his grief that he did not even notice the jibe. He was just looking
up at the castle frantically, hand at his sheathed blade.
"All right then, we'll do it this way. Duran and I will crash into the west wing as loud as
possible. Hopefully that will draw in most of the soldiers. I'm pretty sure I can overpower
anyone we come across, since I've got two elementals behind me. Hawk, you and Riesz can use the
diversion we create to take the east wing by stealth. We'll meet at the King's throne room.
Everyone got it?"
Hawkeye and Riesz nodded. When Duran did not answer, she pinched him viciously on the arm.
"Ouch! What was that for?"
"We're going. Stop moping around."
Riesz, sensitive to the ebb and flow of Mana energy, heard power beneath Angela's words.
"Okay! Let's go!" The big warrior charged off, but not in the fatalistic, manic way that Riesz
would have expected.
Angela must have meddled with his memories. No grief-stricken boy runs off to avenge his friend
like it was a game! What's she up to?
"Riesz, come on. We need to be ready to go when the guards go after them."
The thief grabbed her arm and pulled her along with him. The great stone castle loomed ominously
before them.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"Report!"
The female soldier cowered a little as the tall, blond man bent his full attention upon her. He
was clad in a blue robe with a gold tassle as a belt, but the most distinctive piece of his
apparel was the long cloak that flew out behind him. It was a brilliant crimson so bright that
it was supposed to blind the viewer if he or she stared at it too eagerly. The soldier was
trying desperately not to look at him or his cloak.
"The front gate has been taken, sir! Moderate casualties, east and west corridors under siege,
sir!"
"Excellent. I'll pay a visit to his Majesty."
The Wizard of the Red Lotus whirled to face the gate, and vanished. The soldier sighed, and
went quickly to join her comrades in the siege of the castle.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"That was Koren, wasn't it?" Riesz kept her voice to a low whisper, and she was nearly on top of
him. She and Hawkeye were crowded into a tiny crevice, waiting for the frenzied guards to clear
the area.
"I think so. I've never met him. Angela knew him, but she doesn't talk about him much. Duran
was mentioning something about a wizard in a red cape in the jail, but I didn't really take him
seriously. He seemed really mad at the bloke. Wonder why?"
"Who cares? Let's just get on with this. See, all the guards are gone."
The guards were indeed gone, and the amazon attempted to lift herself out of their mutual hiding
place.
"Hey! Watch it!"
Both of them tumbled out in a tangle of bodies as Riesz pulled Hawkeye out with her. They
struggled to separate themselves, but that only served to make the situation even worse. As they
writhed, Hawkeye felt Riesz's warmth enveloping him. It was not an unpleasant sensation.
Hey, this isn't so bad. he thought. Riesz was warm, and her warmth was comfortable, like the
sun on the desert when it first rises, and the air is still cool from the night. She smelled
of leather and oil, as any good fighter should smell. He felt himself strangely drawn to her.
He had never felt this way before, not even with Jessica.
Riesz struggled with the young man intertwined with her limbs, but she was concealing something
with all her fighting. When they finally managed to separate themselves from each other, she
stood up and brushed herself off, praying that Hawkeye was not feeling the same thing she was
at that moment.
"Riesz...I..." Fearing what she would see, she turned, and he was there, seated on the marble
floor still. As she watched, he extended a golden hand, and slowly began to stand. Her heart's
beat quickened, time slowed, and all of her senses seemed to be attuned to the beautiful, young
man that was reaching longingly for her. Warmth ran up and down her entire body like liquid
fire. The tips of her fingers tingled, and she felt blood rush to her face. She took in his
fingers, so long and slender, and then the strong arms that had saved her from death many times.
Then she followed the arm up to his face, his angular, tanned countenance. Black eyes gazed at
her, and she felt something resonate between them.
No, this can't be happening! We have a mission to complete, duties to fulfill, we don't have
time to fall in love!
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Angela knocked away the blast savagely almost as soon as it left the magician's staff, and Duran
coldly cut the doll to pieces. It disappeared with a soft bang, but there were more coming.
"How many are there?" Duran said, exasperated, after yet another onslaught had been repelled.
"I've counted at least thirty since we broke into the courtyard, and that doesn't include the
unicorn statues you cut apart."
The big youth blinked a couple of times, he had not expected his companion to keep track of the
enemy. Hell, he hadn't, and he was a trained warrior! He took a long look at her during one of
the infrequent pauses in the flow of battle, really looked at her, and found that he very much
liked what he saw.
When they had been imprisoned in the dark of the Castle City's jails, Duran had not really given
much thought to the voice that lilted like a cat's purr, or the delicate manner with which she
breathed. Even when he had seen her in the light, he had only been stricken by her physical
beauty. For a moment, she looked almost like a vengeful goddess, poised to deliver holy
retribution on the ones who violated her followers.
Then, her eyes, so disturbingly golden, met his, and she smirked. She twitched her hips just so,
and he knew that she was not the pampered princess he had thought.
"Like what you see?"
Angela had caught the oaf ogling her, and made use of the situation expertly. She would do
everything in her power to keep him from breaking the bonds she had laid about his grief.
So she wiggled her hips a little to get his attention, then held it with the golden gaze he
seemed to be so fascinated by. But all her concentration shattered when the voice rang down
her shared bond with the elementals.
:No! We don't have time to fall in love!:
Riesz?
She pushed away from Duran impatiently, and he frowned at her oddly. Ignoring him, she listened
for Riesz's voice to call again. When nothing more came to her, Angela decided to consult the
faerie.
:I heard, Angela. It is Riesz, though I can't reach her. She is in turmoil, and I'm not
certain why. I can't reach Hawkeye, either.:
"But what's wrong? What's Riesz thinking?"
:I told you, I can't tell! But I should think that it would be fairly obvious, since the only
one near to Riesz is Hawk!:
For the first time, the faerie sounded angry, and had to visibly force herself to calm down.
"What are you saying?" Angela continued blithely, and Duran snorted. The princess whirled on
him. "What was that for?"
"You're dense about the weirdest things, princess."
And he would say no more.
:At any rate, the monsters have stopped attacking, I think that we should head toward the Throne
Room.: The faerie disappeared, and Angela just followed Duran, mentally swearing at her own
stupidity. It was Hawkeye that Riesz was pining over.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"We can't tell them about this." Riesz said quickly, as she stood up with equal agility.
"I think it's too late for that." Hawkeye said. "I think they already know."
"But you have a fiance! I have a kingdom to rule! We can't..."
"No, we can't. That, at least we both agree on." Hawkeye's features clouded, and he retreated
from her to put up the facade of serenity once more.
"So what do we do?" asked the amazon, now desperate, caught between longing and frustration.
"Nothing. We move on. Let's go. We can probably still meet them before the Throne Room."
So they kept moving. Riesz hoped that concentrating on the way her bootheels clicked on the
marble floors would prevent her from hearing the sound of Hawkeye's low breathing.
What is happening to me? I'm no silly, lovesick, vapid lady-creature! What's wrong with me? I
will have to marry to the advantage of my kingdom, not fall into hopeless love with a...a...
thief!
She had once thought that there was no more room in her heart. Between Eliot, her deceased
parents, and the kingdom of Laurant, she had believed her heart filled, with no room for a third
love. Her family and her people, life had once been simple for her.
Angela and Duran were there when Riesz and Hawkeye arrived, both of them looked exhausted.
"Where were you two? We've been waiting ages! Never mind, let's hurry in, maybe the King is
still alive." Angela put a hand on the large doorknob, and began to turn it, but Duran's hand
whipped out suddenly, ensnaring her hand in a lunatic grasp. She cried out, but not from the
pain, the fighter had broken his mental bonds.
"The King? Davyd...Jon... You, you bewitched me!"
She met his eyes squarely, and the other two were poised to intervene should she need their
help.
"Yes, and I'm not sorry I did it."
"How...how could you..."
"Paralyze your mind? When you were about to go and get yourself killed? I don't think that
magic was the only thing clouding your mind, Duran of Forcena."
She shook off his hand, and opened the door.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"So, you are King Richard? And the Knights of Gold? Hah!"
The Wizard of the Red Lotus stood before the great throne, laughing heartily at the middle-aged
man seated there. Two men lay beside the throne, already prostrated by Koren's powerful magic.
"Yes, I am. And you are the Crimson Wizard, of whom I've heard so much?"
Koren laughed again, and the King shuddered. The sound was high, piercing, and the man's high
tenor was not pleasant to listen to.
"Of course! I have been sent by your lover to slay you by fire. Ironic, no?"
The King took in his breath sharply. The red-cloaked wizard was shrewd, he knew of Richard's
affair with Valda.
"Ah, struck a chord, have I? A sensitive spot? So sorry. Any last words before you die, old
man?"
"STOP!"
A young woman's voice thundered through the room, and Koren whipped around. Angela stood there,
hands on her shapely hips, golden eyes burning with suppressed rage. The wizard noticed three
other figures behind her, but that was all, before the princess brandished her staff and began
pushing toward him.
"Koren..." she growled, deep in her throat. The sound made Koren shiver. When she swung at
him, he nearly did not dodge, he was so distracted.
"Hah!" he laughed. "Fancy meeting you here, princess! And your little friends!" He turned
his gaze to the King, "I suppose we'll have to wait to settle this, dear Richard, until the
babies have gone to sleep." He cackled one last time, and disappeared as a ray of holy light
seared the spot he might have occupied.
"Red Wizard!!! I'll never forgive you!" Duran broke past Riesz and Hawkeye, and hammered down
the corridor toward one of the windows. His progress stopped abruptly when Angela hit him
solidly on the head with her staff.
"Get some sense into that thick skull of yours!"
"Yes, Duran, please try to calm yourself." The King rose from the throne, and came down from the
dais to touch his friend's son on the forehead. "You and your friends have done much for this
kingdom, but that wizard is beyond you for now."
Duran made mutinous noises but, nursing his aching skull, submitted, and knelt at his liege's
knees.
"Who exactly was that wizard, anyway?" Riesz asked, "Angela didn't exactly have a lot of time
to explain while we were planning to enter the castle."
The King looked up at the amazon, as if noticing her for the first time, but answered quickly
enough.
"That was the Wizard of the Red Lotus, Koren Lioutte, master of fire, Magic Protector of
Altena..."
"The Crimson Mage, of course, Valda's little pet." Angela interrupted before the King could go
further. "He has athousand names, none of them earned honestly. He couldn't even use magic
before, he just sprangup as the best magician in Altena and Mother's advisor, all at once."
Riesz could hear a note of bitterness in Angela's words, and a bit of jealousy for a position
that the princess should have held for her mother. But she was surprised to see the King's
expression after Angela's words.
"You lived in Altena? You know Valda?"
Riesz rather thought that he looked like someone had just dropped the wrong end of a poleaxe on
his head.
"Yes, she's my mother."
"Valda had a daughter?!!"
************
Okay, I'll stop there. I saw some major missing parts about Angela's lineage in the game, so I'm
going to fill them in my way. Guess who the father is?
Anyway, thanks for the comments, guys, they help a lot.
~Truewind