A/N: Wow, still got readers around I see! I must say that I'm pretty flattered by most of your comments, I can't believe that some of my readers are almost 7 years older than me and are loving the story as much as they are. Makes me really happy, thanks! This chapter is a bit longer, but no one seems to mind so, here ya go.

Lucrecia LeVrai: Sorry about scaring you, but you're right I did that just to scare you all and to try and trigger 57 off. As for the game aspects, I totally agree but I have seen some nice adaptions. Greez, you're 6 years older than me! Oh yes, about your comment on the weapon shop in the black mage village… I dare you to go to that shop and see if you notice anything…

Wonwingangel: I love your reviews! Hee, I can't believe you checked to story so often! Crazy… thanks for the comments. As for the 239 story, it may not be ready for a while, need to figure out names and stuff for characters. But I promise it'll be good!

Chapter 6

The hot sunlight of the desert was beaming down, dusty sand kicked up from around him; the heat and sand nearly blinded him. He wasn't sure what he was doing there or where he was, everything was a messy blur of sand, sunlight and… trees? He liked trees but they didn't seem like normal trees; they formed out of the ground strangely, not out of dirt or sand but out of another tree? No, he was standing in a tree! He quite liked that.

He wandered over to a patch of trees; the shade was pleasingly cool next to the stiff heat. He stood there tying to make sense of his situation under the trees… but he decided to think about the tree instead, that was more pleasant to think about. He felt funny standing in a tree, he thought he was too big to stand in trees. This tree must be special. It must be huge, and it must look pretty from far away. He nodded to himself while he thought about this. Trees were nice.

A sudden shrill scream made him jump. The sound broke the pleasant silence; suddenly he heard the yelling and screaming of humans coming from all around him. Confused, he peered through a crack of leaves and branches to see all the other black mages marching through the tree's paths, they set fire to the houses built in the tree and they attacked people. The people didn't look like normal humans at all. They ran around in groups and screamed when they got ambushed by the black mage soldiers; most of the strange humans got killed.

The black mage became confused and retreated back into the patch of trees. He could still hear the screaming; he could still feel that sense of magic only a mage could feel. But he didn't understand, it was strange, so he sat inside the patch of trees admiring the emerald leaves that swayed gently whenever a spell was cast outside. The black mage felt calm in there, until the sounds outside stopped.

He crawled out from the shelter of the tree patch. The black mages were all missing, only the dead and dying were left. Quite a few humans were dead, lying motionless on the ground, there were only a few black mages defeated. Everything was silent. The sun was still pounding down on him; the dusty sand blew up slightly in the breeze. Was everyone gone?

Suddenly a human ran out from one of the destroyed homes nearby, a spear at the ready. The black mage stood there motionless, not by fear but by lack of understanding what was facing him. The human advanced and stabbed the spear through the black mage. The black mage choked on pain and kneeled over as the spear was drawn out from him, it had pierced through his middle and left a large hole that dripped dark blood onto the dusty sand floor.

'That's for Burmeica!' The human yelled as he ran off. The black mage sat alone, crunched over on the ground, gripping onto the wound that felt like it would rip him apart. He choked on a sob, wincing on the pain that cursed his body. He wanted to be back under the tree patch where he felt safe…

A sudden darkness replaced the bright sky above him; like a fire the darkness burned away the edges of the sky, until there was nothing but dark above the massive tree. He watched in paralyzed fear as a figure appeared from the slice of darkness, it was huge and it was advancing from the dark to the beautiful tree, he was carrying a spear like the one that stabbed him; he threw it down towards the tree. The spear caught a strange fire as it fell through the atmosphere to the tree, it would surely rip the tree apart, burn it down even. The spear fell closer and closer, until it hit, engulfing the mage and the beautiful tree in the flames of war, the most painful death…

Mr. 114 rose from his dream in a cold sweat, his breath was quick and his mind was filled with the stale fear of the dream. The more he woke, the more the dream slipped away, the details of the dream became missing and soon all that was felt was a unexplainable fear. The unfamiliar fear that only came from nightmares.

The sun had risen over the faraway mountains by now, they had set up camp close to the Ice Craven's exit; between a patch of mountainous rubble and a thick forest. A human's village could be see in the not so distant horizon, it was smaller than where Mr. 114 had come from, there were few building and little movement could be seen. Mr. 239 told them not to build a fire because the humans there would come searching for them; he also said that the village there was horrible, that they should avoid it as much as they could. Mr. 114 didn't understand but knew that Mr. 239 was smart so he didn't question him.

He rubbed his hidden face with his hands, which Mr. 239 had bandaged for him. When he had heard about what Mr. 114 had done when Mr. 57 attacked him, he was very impressed. He told Mr. 114 while bandaging him that he was very brave and very smart. Mr. 114 didn't think so highly of himself, even if he didn't know what 'brave' meant.

Mr. 114 and Mr. 239 had taken turns guarding over the site through the night so they both got sleep without endangering themselves. Mr. 239 seemed scared of the human village, and had told Mr. 114 to watch out for anything strange happening there or any humans coming towards them. None had thankfully.

Mr. 114 sat up from his makeshift bed of leaves and realized his hunger; he moaned slightly, he hadn't eaten for nearly two days. He didn't need much to live on really, but two days were far too long to go without.

"Hungry?" Mr. 239 asked from across the camp, he was leaning back on some mountain rumble, his bag open in front of him.

Mr. 114 nodded in agreement. "Me too," whined Mr. 57, who was between Mr. 114 and Mr. 239 holding his stomach as if in pain.

Mr. 239 dug into his bag, taking out a potion or packet of medicine whenever it got in his way. Finally he pulled up a paper bag; he pulled some form of bread out and looked it over. He handed some to the other eager and hungry mages, apologizing for it being 'stale'.

"So," Mr. 114 managed between bites, "where do we need to go next?"

Mr. 239 sat silent for a moment, chewing on his share of bread. "To South Gate." He mumbled, "… It's going to be harder getting through there then it was in the Ice Cavern. There's going to be lots of humans, and we can't be seen or they'll alert everyone."

"What's that mean?" Mr. 57 questioned as he held the last of his bread in a death grip.

"They'll tell everyone we're there, then they'll want… us to go away." Mr. 239 tried, he found it hard to explain things to Mr. 57. "It's going to be hard," he said, mostly to himself. "I wish there was an easier way down there, but once we get through the land will be open to get to the marsh… then we'll have to try and find that passage…"

"I had a dream about it again!" Mr. 57 cried out excitedly, his mouth still full of bread. "I saw a forest too, wasn't that pretty. Not like the ones here." He shook his head. "But it looked like water."

Mr. 114 and Mr. 239 stared at him for a second; maybe Mr. 57 didn't realize how odd that sounded.

"Right," Mr. 239 started, "South Gate is further down the cliff edge, right where the mountains and cliffs meet, I'm not sure how we'll get through…. I guess we'll figure it out once we get there."

The mages left camp and started towards South Gate. They walked near the cliff edge, where there were trees for cover. Mr. 239 tried to avoid the humans from the nearby village as much as possible. The morning had brightened up fully by now, the golden sunlight beamed down beautifully onto the plateaus that rose above the mist; the mist seemed to make a large white ocean across the valleys below.

They didn't talk much on the walk to South Gate; the warm sunlight was a treat to the mages after the Ice Cavern and the gloomy valleys of mist they had traveled previously. But Mr. 114 had noticed a change between the three mages, after traveling just one day together they had grown close. Maybe it was because of the incident in the Ice Cavern, or maybe because Mr. 239 and Mr. 57 had accepted Mr. 114 so easily…. Or most likely, it was because, being black mages, they felt utterly alone when they weren't together. As far as Mr. 114 could tell, they weren't many black mages that were aware like them, he hadn't seen any since the castle and they were all empty. Who knows, maybe they were the only ones…

After about an hour and a half after they left their camp, they reached a large stonewall, South Gate. There were fewer trees around here, the soil around the wall was yellow and dead from the walls construction and it hadn't properly revived after the years.

"Its big." Mr. 57 said after looking the wall up and down.

"Its not that big…." Mr. 114 corrected, he was used to the large ancient walls of Alexandria. This gate wall was nothing compared to that.

"True, but how do we get through it?" Mr. 239 pondered. He considered many different ways they could get past the first wall; he could knock it down easily with a spell, but that would cause too much commotion, endangering them. He could cast stop or sleep on the guards at the actual gate but there were far too many humans around to try that….

"…We should climb over it." Mr. 239 nodded to himself.

"What's 'climb'?" Mr. 56 asked, titling his head to one side.

"Um, its… like walking up the wall only you use your hands to pull you up. Its tricky but I think it's the only way to get over." Mr. 239 answered, surveying different parts of the wall. "Lets just hope there aren't any humans on the other side."

Mr. 239 paced around the stonewall, trying to find somewhere that they could actually climb up. He finally found a spot; it was close to the cliff edge and was built partially into a large patch of trees. The wall here had been neglected; the wall here was starting to crumble from the weather and perhaps by the occasional creature picking at it for whatever reason Mr. 239 couldn't grasp. It would be easy to climb the wall here.

Before he started to climb, Mr. 239 threw his brass staff over the wall. This confused Mr. 114 and Mr. 57 greatly until Mr. 239 explained that he was checking to see if there were any humans. When all that met their ears was silence Mr. 239 started to climb over the wall. He did it quickly and easily and disappeared from the mages view as he fell to the other side.

"Your next Mr. 114!" He called from the opposite side of the wall.

Mr. 114 paused, looking up at the wall. He didn't understand how Mr. 239 had gotten over it so easily.

"Come on, you can do it." Mr. 239 coached from the other side, "to start just grab onto whatever you can and start pulling yourself up."

Mr. 114 did as he was instructed, he walked up to the wall and felt around for something to grab onto. He found two cracks in the wall and gripped onto them, wondering what he was supposed to do next.

"Did you find something?" Mr. 239 asked from the other side.

"Yes…." Mr. 114 answered.

"Good! Next you want to find something to step into with your foot, there should be some cracks near closer to the ground…." Mr. 239 instructed.

Mr. 239 was good at explaining this; Mr. 114 found two places to step which made him rise up off the ground and higher up the wall.

"Great! Now just find more spots for your hands and another place for your feet… Mr. 57 you should watch close, you have to do it too." They heard Mr. 239 say from the other side. In a matter of a few moments Mr. 114 had made it to the other side with Mr. 239; Mr. 57 joined them after some slow, repetitive instructions.

The other side of the wall was barren. There weren't any trees for cover; only low laying foliage and flowers, the dirt was dry and dead. They were far from the gate and the path where the humans would walk. There weren't any humans nearby, yet. There usually wasn't very many humans passing through but staying within view of passing humans was a risk they couldn't take.

They made their way down, quickly and silently as to not attract humans. They walked in the weeds and low bushes to limit the sound make by their footsteps. The sun was still shining and the only sound they could hear was that of the light breeze passing through the few plants. They walked near the cliff edge where the humans had, to Mr. 114's relief, built a fence to keep people from falling off.

Soon, they made it to the cable car station. The ground here was strange, the station was built in a part of the ground that had been dug out of the uneven plateau, causing uneven cliffs of rock and dirt around the station. The mages found this useful, they hid from the humans at the station behind the one of the uneven cliffs. They sat for a moment to rest before continuing

Voices of humans were rising up all around them. The sounds of their voices made all three of the mages stiffen in fear, a normal reaction amongst aware mages. Mr. 114 hadn't seen or heard a human since his fall off the Alexandrian Plateau. But he couldn't hold back his old habit of listening intently to their conversations.

"I can't believe it, my whole family lives in Lindblum!"
"Seriously? Man, I'd be worried about them…"
"I am worried about them! I don't know if they're dead or alive! I bet the house is completed destroyed too."
"Wouldn't doubt it from what I heard about that Black Mage army."
"Those bastards! If I got my hands on one of those…!"
"I know, I can't get over them. Anything that could destroy Lindblum and Burmecia…"
"And Cleyra!"
"Yeah, I know. I can't get over that queen."

"I hate humans." Mr. 239 whispered bitterly.

They soon continued, heading down the cable cars' path. The car barely left station now that most travelers were avoiding the Alexandrian border. The path was dirty, barren and steep in some parts. They made their way down at a steady pace, not too fast so they wouldn't trip down the steep slope, but fast enough so they'd get out of harm's way soon.

"What were those humans talking about…" Mr. 57 asked quietly as he walked.

"…The Black Mage army attacked Lindblum." Mr. 239 answered, his voice becoming hard and bitter. "They keep attacking cities, they keep killing people."

"Why…?" Mr. 57 voice had lost his carefree tone and had become small and confused.

Mr. 239 didn't want to answer, especially to Mr. 57 who, he knew, was part of the army that attacked Burmecia. "You'll remember one day." He answered, moving ahead slightly.

Mr. 57 didn't ask any more questions, none of the mages spoke at all.

After about an hour, they had made it to the halfway point. A large building was there, and there were lots of humans. They snuck around the structure to avoid being seen by the workers there. An anxiety was shared by all the mages, a fear of being seen by the humans.

They were on a cable car path again. They were all alone and out of sight from the humans again, but the anxiety still hung on their shoulders. Mr. 239 would look at the other two and wonder in amazement of how they survived everything. Their hardships showed though, Mr. 57 with all his patch ups all over his coat and hat, Mr. 114 and his banged arm and hands. It was amazing that they were alive. He just hoped they could past the bottom of the gate without any more injuries to add to the list.

After another hour, they made it to the bottom of South Gate. They all stopped dead in their path. The only way they could possible get past and out to the empty landscape ahead, was by passing through a small settlement of humans. Lots of humans.

None of them had expected this. It was beyond any danger they had faced together. To try and pass through a human village without being caught.

Oooh, cliffhanger anyone? The next chapter… is going to be interesting. It'll be short though just to warn you all. But anyways, please leave me a review and expect the next chapter pretty soon.