Hello guys!

Sorry for that long wait! Took me ages this time, didn't it? However, your patience is rewarded with an extra large chapter, more than 6,000 words! O.o

And here it is!

Chapter 11

(Will's POV)

I looked up at the two figures remaining on the pillar of earth. Lance' head hung down in exasperation and Kara was wearing an amused expression. Hope my little stunt didn't upset her too much…

The first task at hand, however, was getting her and Lance down here as well, preferably without too many broken bones. But I already had a plan…

"Hey! Lilly!" I yelled. The blue-haired girl reluctantly tore her eyes away from the sacred peak of Mt. Aleph and strode over to me. "Do you see that little plant there?" I pointed to a healthy-looking green pair of leaves which I had discovered at the bottom of the pillar a moment ago. "If you give me Root for a second, I can grow that into a vine so our friends can climb down here."

"Why can't I do it myself?" Lilly wanted to know.

"Because you need a Mars Djinni to get Growth Psynergy, and Lance is up there. Joining with Gas won't give that Psynergy to you."

Lilly shrugged and gave me Root in exchange for Gas. The Venus Djinni nodded and I set her to me. Instantly I felt the power inside me change, affecting me even physically. Suddenly I was more aware of the weight of my armor, but I also felt I had an awesome amount of psynergetic power. Most of all, though, I felt a new kind of power inside me, one I didn't have before. Concentrating on that power, I stretched out my arm: "Growth!"

Small spheres of yellow light appeared in my palm. I directed them at plant at my feet which immediately started to grow as it fed on the nourishing Venus Psynergy. Quickly I understood how to control the vine's growth and I made it spiral straight upwards. When it reached the top, I ordered it to cling to the rock before I stopped, feeling drained and mildly nauseated. "Didn't think it would be that tough!" I gasped.

I think that was pretty good, considering you're no Venus Adept! Root's voice resounded in my mind. How does it feel for you? I asked spontaneously, referring to our bonding of different elements. It feels different than Lilly, that's for sure, but I'm perfectly comfortable with you, too. came her reply. Lilly's got such a temper, don't you think?

I laughed involuntarily. That's one way of putting it! I think whatever entity aligned her with Venus must've had its mind elsewhere that day!

Root's chuckles echoed softly in my mind as I watched Kara and Lance climb down the vine. When Kara had almost reached the bottom, she jumped down the last bit and flung her arms around me, hugging me fiercely.

"You jerk, you scared me!" she said, looking straight into my eyes. I wrapped my arms around her, too, feeling my heartbeat quicken considerably at her closeness. "Sorry, I didn't mean to freak you out like that..." I muttered, stroking her silky hair. "I just thought I'd take the most obvious route down..."

Despite her efforts to look stern, Kara grinned involuntarily. "I'm not kidding." I continued as I loosened my grip on her to stroke her face. "This is a special skill I've always had, not only here in Weyard. Even when I was little I had jumped down from places at least twice my height and never got myself so much as a scratch." I drew her closer until the tips of our noses touched. "I'd never leave you just like that, Kara, especially not without a proper goodbye... I love you."

"I love you too Will..." With that, she cupped my head in her hands and pulled me close.

All of a sudden I felt a jolt of electricity on my mouth. Gently, Kara pressed her lips on mine, her affection washing over me like a mighty wave. I could feel she was delighted and yet amused at the gale of emotions she caused within me.

Before I could actually respond to her kiss, though, she had pulled away already. "Promise you'll never scare me like that again!" she demanded.

I looked at her with a pained expression: "That sounds kinda tough now, considering your reaction..."

"Oh you!" She shoved me away playfully, a broad grin plastered on her face.

Laughing, we joined hands again and turned to Lilly, who was talking to Lance animatedly, the topic being us, obviously. "You two definitely need to get a room!" she said with a smirk. A second later though, her face contorted into an expression of outrage. "Why you cheeky little…"

Gas appeared in a purple flash, grinning mischievously and looking definitely pleased with himself as he soared out of Lilly's range and landed a few feet away from her. "Can't take the truth or what!" he taunted. "Heed my advice!"

Lilly gave him a stare so murderous that even I was frightened, even though she wasn't looking at me. But much to my surprise, she looked away after a few seconds, the gaze of doom fading from her face. "As much as I hate to admit, you've got a point." she growled through clenched teeth, then let out a sigh. "It's time I stood up and admitted some of my feelings to you, to one of you in particular…"

She looked into the round to survey the different reactions. Gas visibly relaxed when Lilly tore her eyes away from him and settled them on Lance. The Mars Adept's face instantly flushed crimson, matching the color of his hair, and he didn't seem able to decide whether he should be delighted or terrified.

What's this? I heard Kara's confused voice in my mind. Did we miss something?

Don't know.I answered. I didn't expect them to be that fast…

Yeah, and we didn't even do anything to help… she added.

Lilly was now slowly approaching Lance, her gaze averting his; she was looking down instead. "The way he makes me feel…" she said in a quiet voice, advancing further, "…I've never felt that way about someone before…" Her mouth twitched and her gaze briefly tore away from Lance and moved to something at the border of her vision. Suddenly she seemed almost sinister, but when I looked again, she was standing in front of Lance, shyly avoiding his gaze as she tried to find the correct words to go on. Must've been my imagination…

"Don't you want to know who's the lucky one?" she asked, putting her arms loosely around his neck and looking him straight into the eyes. Lance gulped, unable to respond in any way.

"Let me give you a few pointers…" she said, glancing another quick look sideways. All of us were standing still, watching the scene unfold. "First, he's from Weyard, obviously…" Lance looked irritably at her for a second, but his expression quickly changed to something else as she pulled him closer. "Second, he's here in this crater…" She was now tightly embracing him, her arms around his body, her mouth next to his ear. "And third…" She paused and I could've sworn she mouthed "sorry" into his ear. Her hands retreated slowly and I realized she had been exploring his pack rather than his back! "And third… he's aligned with… Jupiter!"

In one fluid motion she detached herself from Lance, spun around and tossed something at the unsuspecting Djinni behind her. Gas stepped backwards in shock, tripped and fell over. A thick vine shot out of the ground where he stood a split second ago, twice the strength of my arm and covered with vicious thorns. Gas quickly scrambled to his feet again and decided to make a run for it, but Lilly pursued him as if she was some vengeful spirit of old. "I'll show you my affection, wait till I get a hold of you!" she growled, throwing more vines at him which he somehow managed to dodge without getting hit even once. "HEY! Those are my Bramble Seeds!" Lance shouted after her, but she paid no attention to him and resumed her hunt. Within seconds, they were around the corner and out of sight.

Lance sighed and dropped down on the ground. "Oh well, let's see what else is missing…"

"What do you think Gas said to her?" Kara whispered as he removed his backpack and started looking over its contents.

"Probably something along the lines of her needing to get her own love life or something…"

"He's got a point, you know?" Lance looked up from his pack and quickly checked left and right before he went on: "But that was scary. I hope I'll never see her in a fit of passion…"

Kara giggled as he continued rummaging through his pack. "Thank Mars, she only took a handful of seeds…"

Curiously I looked at the seeds he was holding in his hand. They were a brownish hue, roughly an inch in size and like the vines, they had thorns on them, though not nearly as many.

"How do they work?" I asked him.

"They are activated by Psynergy, not by just throwing them." he explained. "It doesn't matter which kind, even non-Adepts can trigger them with what remnants of Psynergy they possess. I suppose even though they have no powers of their own anymore, they retained the ability to control Psynergy. Here." He said handing me one of them. "You can try one if you like."

"Thanks." Carefully not to sting myself, I took it from his hand. I realized it was fairly safe to carry a bunch of them in your hand if you didn't clutch them too tightly. When Kara had had a look, too, I tossed it a fair distance away. Nothing happened, as Lance had predicted. I closed my eyes and raised a hand, mentally reaching for the seed; a small sphere of concentrated power glowing softly amidst the darkness. When I touched it with my own power, its glow brightened and turned into the shape of a thorny vine before fading away. I opened my eyes. The grown plant, now completely void of Psynergy stuck out of the ground where the seed had been. A second later though it disintegrated into a tiny pile of ashes.

"Whoa!" I said involuntarily. "They go off fast! Isn't it risky to carry them around just like that? What if somebody activates them while they are still in your pack?"

Lance grimaced. " I thought about that, too, that's why they're in my pack and not in my pockets. Fortunately no normal monster is anywhere near as intelligent as required to use these seeds. They need to be touched, like you did just now. A wave of Psynergy won't set them off, no matter how strong it is. Most people without Psynergy don't even know they're able to use them, even if they know these are no ordinary seeds. And Adepts don't tend to go up against one another most of the time. Still I'd be in deep trouble if somebody set them of inside my pack… I'd need a bag made of mythril to keep them safe…"

"Why mythril?" Kara asked.

"Mythril has special properties which affect psynergy." Lance said. "The various mythril alloys show different reactions upon contact with Psynergy, depending on what metals were used to make them. For example, mythril silver can be imbued with all sorts of beneficial Psynergy which it will pass on to its bearer. A lot of those unique, ancient pieces of armor with ability-enhancing Psynergy was crafted using mythril silver. Mythril on its own however has Psynergy-dispelling qualities. Any Psynergy that comes into contact with pure mythril simply ceases to exist. These seeds would be safer in a bag of woven mythril thread than if I tossed them over the edge of Weyard."

"Wow…" I mused. "A whole suit of mythril armor must make pretty much invincible!"

Lance laughed out loud. "Apart from the fact that mythril is a soft metal which is ill-suited for crafting armor, it is so incredibly rare and expensive that making even so much as a helmet from it would require hundreds of thousands of coins worth of mythril, probably even several millions. I've never seen any myself, but I heard the rich use mythril coins of immense worth!"

"That sounds convenient." Kara said. "I guess the weight of all that gold would become a serious problem at about 20000 coins…"

Lance shot her a strange look, but didn't get to say something, because Gas suddenly reappeared. He seemed to be in a hurry and looked quite worried.

"Gas, what's up? Where'd you leave Lilly?" I asked him as general attention was turned to him.

"Well, I was just running merrily for my life, when she suddenly stopped throwing those things at me. I first thought she had run out of them, but when I looked around, she was standing in front of this really large treasure chest. It was just standing there right in the midst of the landscape, I was wondering who put it there. Logically Lilly spontaneously forgot about killing me and tried to open it. Which was a bit difficult considering it was way taller than her; when she finally managed to pry it open using her sword, she could barely look inside. She was just about to reach inside when that thing suddenly grew fangs and tried to bite her. I don't know how she did it, but somehow she managed to keep all of her limbs attached. She then tossed her remaining seeds at it, which didn't seem to bother it very much, and yelled for me to help, when the thing decided to put her to sleep using Psynergy. And I decided to run for my life once more. So here I am now."

"You just left her out there alone with a Kaiser Mimic!" Lance asked incredulously. "Come on, we've got to save her, she's in danger!"

Wasting no time at all, we hurried off, following Gas' directions. "I thought they were merely legends!" I heard Lance say next to me. "Mimics are said to feed on the Psynergy within magical items they 'eat', even transforming into larger kinds if they get enough power… But I didn't think they actually exist!"

We continued to run over the bare surface of the crater. When a group of three slimes suddenly showed up in front of us, we just dashed right through their midst, not even bothering to draw our weapons. A couple of seconds later, we found the place Gas had described.

Lilly was lying on the ground in a heap, sleeping, but unharmed. She even snored every now and then. The Kaiser Mimic, as Lance called it, had obviously lost interest in her, because it was just standing around a few feet away from her, looking just like a huge blue, but otherwise ordinary chest.

"Psst… it's waiting for its next victim." Lance whispered. "It won't come alive too soon unless someone else tries to open it. Which means we have enough time to prepare to fight it! I'll start by moving Lilly a bit further away…"

He went and picked up Lilly, carrying her on both arms, then proceeded to look for a place more or less safe to put her. "I could also try to wake her up!" Kara suggested. Lance looked down at the sleeping girl in his arms. "To be honest, I like her much better this way…"

I could understand that notion. Lilly had a serene smile on her face, and she chose that exact moment to snuggle up against Lance, rubbing her head at his chest. The faint blush that crept back on his face was indication enough that he had noticed it, too. "But we might need her, that fight's gonna be more difficult than the standard roaming monster groups here…" He shrugged. "Go ahead and try."

I felt Kara concentrating her Psynergy as she pointed at Lilly and said: "Restore." Blue stars of Mercury Psynergy appeared around Lilly, orbiting her a while before vanishing again, and her body glowed faintly for about a second, but other than that, nothing happened. Lilly was still sleeping soundly.

"Well, I tried." Kara said. "I guess I'm not that strong yet."

"That's okay." I comforted her, "You're not supposed to learn Restore before Lv.13 anyway…"

"Is there no other way to wake her up?" she asked Lance, who shook his head, saying: "Psynergy-induced sleep is much deeper than natural sleep. Yelling or shaking won't wake her up. Even if she got injured, she would most likely sleep on, no matter how serious the wound is." He carefully put her down in a sitting position, leaning her against the rock wall that made up the backside of Mt. Aleph, then picked up her sword which was still lying on the ground nearby. "I suppose she won't mind me using this for a while…" He said, shrugging. "Maybe I'll even give it back when we're done…" He added with a smirk.

"Okay, let's get back to business!" I said. "If this thing is as powerful as you say, we should at least discuss some tactics."

"Yeah Lance, enlighten us!" Kara said, her voice turning slightly sarcastic. "Where are the weak points of a CHEST!

"Well, obviously the legs are one of its weak spots, but since they don't appear until after we attack, I vote we go for the hinges on the backside." He pointed at the curved pieces of metal which connected the lid to the bottom part of the container. "If we manage to destroy both of them, it will have trouble keeping itself assembled. Oh yeah, the thing also has eyes, you might want to aim at them with some Psynergy once it opens them."

"Seems that there are some weak points after all…" Kara grumbled. "I get it this thing's somewhat stronger than what we've met so far?" Lance grinned at her understatement, but nodded and Kara continued: "Then we probably want to depend on our Djinn in this battle. Maybe you know already, but the strength of a summoned spirit depends on what you put it against. You won't know what a Summon can do until you try it on a real bad-ass monster!"

"Interesting." Lance said. "I'll be sure to try that!" With that, we assumed fighting stances and the battle began.

"Root!" I shouted, unleashing the Venus Djinni. At once, I felt power flow into me from the earth below my feet. I also felt my Psynergy return to the way it was before I joined with Root. Good! I thought with satisfaction, I'm going to need my standard Psynergy setup in this fight! I glanced a look at the mimic, but it was still unaware of its company – or their intentions, more likely…

That was about to change. Sort of amused, I watched Kara stepping forward, moving her sword up and down a few times in measurement before finally bringing it down forcefully and with a yell. It looked kinda funny, but I realized it was a sensible thing to do. Rather than randomly hacking away, she had analyzed the arc of her swing in slow motion to see where it would connect – something that required at least some experience to know by instinct.

With a ringing noise metal clashed on metal, Kara's blade leaving a dent in the steel part connecting the monster's two components. It was about an inch deep, more than I expected her sword to do, but still no more than a scratch compared to the huge proportions of our foe.

Finally realizing it was under attack, the Kaiser Mimic came alive. Long, furry spider legs protruded from its sides as it scrambled around to face its opponents. I noticed that each leg ended in a round steel plate, evidence on how it had concealed them so far.

"Aura." I heard Lance' voice behind me and suddenly I felt a surge of power welling up in me. The world around me seemed to slow down considerably and my sword felt as light in my hand as if it was made of wood. I dashed around the Mimic, laughing inwardly at its sluggish attempt to keep up with my movement. Gripping my sword with both hands, I raised it above my head and slashed downwards at the spot previously marked by Kara. It smashed full force into the hinge, sending sparks flying and a numb feeling through my arms. Surprisingly, my sword was still in one piece, but in addition to that it had left a severe gash in the metal.

The Mimic screeched with fury and opened its lid, showing saw-like rows of pointed teeth along its edges. Violet circles of light appeared above it and suddenly a colorful triangle of light homed in on Kara, quickly shifting into what I instantly recognized as a Psynergy Seal. Kara flinched, glowing white for a moment and the seal appeared over her head, spinning slowly. She scowled at the sign above her head for a second before she decided to take out her anger on the monster: "Bubble!"

The Mercury Djinni sent a stream of large bubbles at the Mimic which disappeared from view in the masses of water. When the mist cleared away, we could see the monster was choking, emitting red puffs of smoke. "Way to go, both of you!" I shouted in Kara's direction. "This fight might not take long after all!"

Not giving the foe any room for attack, Lance stepped forward and raised his hands: "Mars!" I watched as the summoned spirit materialized in front of him and dived down at the huge animated chest. I noticed that this time, its glow was much brighter and the fireballs that dispersed from the target were noticeably larger and hotter.

The Mimic flapped its lid angrily, its armor visibly scorched and the metal frame looked as if it had melted temporarily in various places. Wanting to keep the barrage of attacks up, I mentally reached out for Root when I spotted Gas at the border of my view, idly standing by and watching the fight. "Gas! This is no time for slacking off! Get over here and ready for some action!" I circled around the mimic again and raised my hands when Gas was close enough: "Jupiter!"

The spirit seemed to have read my mind, directing its wind waves at the damaged hinge just like I would have. There was a distinct snapping noise when the blades of air severed the linking metal piece. As I returned to Lance' and Kara's sides, I didn't bother to keep much space between me and our opponent as I was faster anyway.

Alas, I had underestimated the Mimic's ability to turn quickly using its many legs. It opened its lid and latched onto my right arm, my hand holding the sword disappearing inside. Pain flared up in me when its teeth pierced my skin, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I would have expected. I had managed to hold onto my sword and now tried swinging it around, pulling away at the same time, but apart from an increase in pain I didn't achieve anything; despite its damaged state, the Mimic's grip was still surprisingly strong. To make matters worse, it didn't even seem to have anything inside that I could hit with my sword. Only when the poison made it choke again a second later, I was able to escape its grasp and return to my friends' sides.

"Are you okay?" Kara asked in concern, looking at my arms while Lance held the monster at bay with a Flare Wall. Checking for myself, I discovered that my worries were mostly unfounded. A straight line of bite marks went across my arm, but they were only bleeding lightly and the pain had subsided to a dull throbbing. As far as I could tell, it was still fully operational. "This is no big deal…" I calmed her, "I guess I have to thank Lance and Aura later…"

In the meantime, Lance had driven the monster away by advancing with the blazing wall of flames, following up as it scuttled away from the intense heat. With its back against the wall, Lance scorched it good for quite a while before he was unable to pour more Psynergy into the fire and retreated back. The Kaiser Mimic seemed to weaken by the moment, but it was still ferocious. Kara halted its new approach by summoning Mercury. The jets of water were powerful enough to knock it back a small distance. While it was still getting to its feet, Aura was set to Lance in a red flash. "This thing's almost down!" Kara yelled, her Psynergy Seal still intact. "Let's stall and have the poison do the job!"

"Come on, let's just finish it off!" Root exclaimed from her place on my shoulder. "Let's go, Will!" I prepared to summon her, but when I reached out to her with my mind, I suddenly felt that somehow this wasn't right, as though I was making a mistake. Looking up, I saw the Mimic had opened its lid and was preparing to cast some Jupiter Psynergy, the target being Lance. Quickly, I made my decision: "Root, SET!"

In addition to the changes in my body I was also confronted with Root's confusion, but she quickly understood when she saw Lance flinch through my eyes. White orbs of energy emerged from his body and streamed towards the Mimic, disappearing inside its opened lid. It looked slightly better than before, but a second later, it had another poison-induced coughing fit which rendered the effort wasted. Lance slumped down, his skin an unhealthy greyish color. "That's it!" Kara yelled, her sword starting to glow blue and gather power. "You're going down, you freak! DREAMTIDE!"

Again, water appeared on the ground which rose up to our knees this time, rendering the Mimic almost helpless as the two waves crashed into it. A distinct snoring sound could be heard, indicating the mimic had fallen asleep. The water disappeared again, leaving everything except our foe dry.

"This thing won't wake up anymore." Kara said matter-of-factly, sheathing her sword and walking over to us. Suddenly, she was all her calm and composed self again. Scary… Root commented and I couldn't help agreeing with her.

I quickly focused on Lance, calling up the new powers I had received through my alliance with Root: "Cure." Yellow energy streamed into him from the ground below and restored the color to his cheeks. A second later, he opened his eyes. "Ugh… is the fight over?"

I nodded. "It got you and drained your life force, but Kara finished it off. Are you okay?"

He got to his feet again. "I'm fine, I think. But how did you heal me, I mean Kara's still sealed…"

"Yeah, how did you know this would happen?" Kara asked. "I thought you were going to summon Root!"

"I didn't know, I was going to summon her, but then I had this feeling again, like yesterday in Vault… It just felt wrong… And when I saw the Mimic was going to attack Lance, I realized I'd be the only one able to heal while you have that seal thing above your head…"

"Is this thing ever going to disappear?" Kara asked, sounding annoyed.

"A Psynergy Seal starts weakening the moment it is cast." Lance explained. "If you concentrate your power, you should be able to break it now."

Sure enough, when Kara closed her eyes, the symbol above her head shattered and disappeared.

"But one thing I don't understand…" Lance said. "How did you manage to use your weapon's special power while that seal was still intact?"

Kara shrugged. "I found that while I couldn't cast any Psynergy myself, I could still channel my powers into the sword… I really don't know."

"Whoa, the Mimic is still there!" Lance said when he spotted the monster. "I thought you said you killed it!"

"Kara put it asleep." I said. "The poison's going to kill it any second now."

"Great! I wonder what kind of treasure we're gonna get! Must be something good, judging from how powerful that thing was… I hope it finally hurries up and bites the dust. Let's wake up Lilly in the meantime…"

We walked over to where Lilly was rested. Lance bent down on one knee and said: "With other statuses, it's basically the same as the Psynergy Seal­­: The longer they last, the weaker they get. By now you should be able to wake her up with your weak Restore spell, Kara."

Kara took this as her cue and cast Restore on Lilly again, but with as much success as the first time. "Oh well." She sighed. "I guess we have to wait until she wakes up by herself…"

We sat down and leant ourselves against the mountain as well. I took Kara's hand into mine again and she laid her head on my shoulder. I'm beginning to miss peaceful moments like this… Kara's mind told me. They sure seem to grow scarce…

Suddenly a blue flash appeared on Kara's body, making us both jump. Oops! I heard Bubble's apologetic voice. I never know in advance when I'll be back, so I can't really help surprising you…I'm sorry.

A purple flash on Lilly indicated that Gas had returned as well. A second later, she woke with a start, her eyes wide open. "You!" she growled, putting Gas on standby again, "I thought I got rid of you!" Gas quickly hopped out of her reach as she took in her surroundings. "What's with that chest?" She pointed at the monster, noticing its battered state. "Don't tell me you fought it! Without me!" She pouted. "Next time, share the fun!"

"We wanted to!" Lance said defensively. "But you were asleep and none of our attempts to wake you up worked! Well…" he went on, eyeing Gas, "At least now we know who's the one for the job next time…"

"Don't you dare…" Lilly glared at Lance. "Hey Will, I want Root back!"

"Sorry, I just remembered I'll still need her to grow another of these vines back at the entrance…" I grinned. "Looks like you'll have to put up with Gas until then…"

"Hey, I thought you were my friend!" Gas exclaimed. "You can't possibly want me to further endanger my life by making me stay with her!"

"Why is everyone sitting around here, anyway?" Lilly wanted to know.

"We're waiting for this thing to kick the bucket." Kara said. "Lance said it probably has some good treasure."

Lilly snorted. "An old sword is all I saw before it tried to chew my arms off. Didn't look that valuable to me…"

"I still need one." Lance said. "Oh right, here's yours. " he added, returning Lilly's sword to her. "I borrowed it just for this fight." Surprisingly, Lilly let it go and just took her sword back.

After a while of uncomfortable silence she spoke up again: "Um… are you sure it will perish anytime soon?"

"Yep." I said. "Kara has seen to that."

"What did you do to it?" she asked her curiously.

"Bubble and Dreamtide." Kara said, flashing a wicked smile. "I call it the Tainted Sleep Combo!"

"You poisoned it?" Lilly nodded in understanding. "Certainly a clever way to get rid of a strong enemy. But keep in mind that poison usually works on common monsters only!"

"I'm a gamer, I know that!" Kara said with indignation. "I didn't even think that it would work on this one!"

Suddenly the ground rumbled and a horrible screeching noise filled the sky. The Mimic turned gray and was devoured by purple flames which appeared out of nowhere. When the noise and rumbling died down, only a pile of gold and a sword remained at the spot where it had been.

"Let's have a look." Lance said and we stood and went to get the loot. I took out our purse and shoved the pile of gold inside. With amazement I noticed that the bulk of the gold wasn't in the shape of coins. There were small bars with numbers like 100 or 200 on them and I even found one worth 500 coins! "We're rich!" I told Kara, showing it to her.

Lifting the purse from the ground, I found that it was now quite heavy. "Whoa, this is too much. I might carry it, but in a fight, this load will slow me down." I removed some of the bars and divided them among my friends. "This way, it won't encumber any of us."

"Hey Lilly!" Kara said, "Lance said something about mythril coins a while ago. What do you know of that?"

"I believe Dad has a few of them at home." Lilly said thoughtfully. "One of them is worth ten thousand coins, even though they're the same size as the smallest gold coins."

"That would erase the weight problem…" I said. "But where do we change them?"

"In Kalay and Tolbi are places where gold can be exchanged for mythril." Lilly explained. "Of course, they want a little more than 10,000 coins. The exchange rate changes according to the availability of both gold and mythril, but it is usually somewhere around 10,500 coins."

"Well, I guess those 500 don't matter anymore once you reach those scales…" Lance said. He picked up the sword the monster had left behind. "Hmm… the design looks familiar…"Lance mused as he looked over the unremarkable object. The handle was of a platinum color and the hilt resembled the shape of an 'x'. Otherwise, it was unadorned. He drew the blade out of the scabbard and both he and Lilly examined it. The blade was as plain-looking as the handle, save the notches which covered one of the blunt sides in regular intervals, forming a row from the hilt to the tip of the blade. "The material is decent quality…" Lilly said after testing the sharpness, though much more carefully than she had done with the Pirate's Blade. "But the edge is nothing to be excited about. I'd almost say my boring old short sword is sharper…"

Lance however was still deep in thought. "I've seen this blade before… somewhere… I just can't remember…" He shrugged. "Anyhow, this must have been a mighty weapon before the Mimic got it. I'm looking forward to see its special ability." He sheathed the blade and fastened it to his belt. Suddenly a faint red glow surrounded him which faded after a moment. I also noticed the color of the handle had changed to a shade of copper. "Hey wait a sec!" he said excitedly. "The sword taught me a new Psynergy!"

"Really?" Lilly asked. "What does it do?"

"Don't know." Lance answered. "It is to be used on the sword, though." He paused, communicating with his Djinni. "Aura says it will probably change something about the weapon…"

"Well, why don't you try it?" Kara suggested.

"Okay, here goes!" He drew the sword, raising it above his head. "Factorize!"

Suddenly, an intense glow surrounded the blade. It was of the same tint of copper that I noticed on its handle a moment ago. When it had faded, we gathered around Lance to look at the weapon. "Hmm… Still looks the same to me…" Kara said.

"No…" Lance said. "Look at the hilt! Its shape has changed!"

True enough, the hilt was now resembling a 'plus' symbol. "I think I know now where I have seen this weapon before…" Lance whispered. "It was some book about ancient weapons… It is called the Sequence, if I remember correctly. The legendary blade which is said to grow stronger with each foe it vanquishes… Is this really it?"

Lilly snorted. "You're saying this blunt thing is a legendary weapon!"

"I recognize it." Lance said. "Of course it could be a fake. But then again, it bestows the Psynergy used to change its shape. If I used it again, the sword would return to its old state."

"You said it grows stronger with each monster slain with it?" I asked him. "How does that work?"

"I don't know." Lance shrugged. "The Sequence is part of a set of four long swords, each of which is supposed to harness the Psynergy all monsters contain in its own, unique way. The Mimic drained most of its powers, before that, it must have been a force to reckon with…"

"I bet you'll find out how it works in battle." Kara said. "For now, let's go back to the entrance to the sanctum."

"Yeah, we've already been dawdling around here enough!" Lilly agreed.

Lance scoffed. "And who was the reason we came here in the first place!"

Lilly's cheeks turned pink. "Point taken…" she mumbled as we left the site. Doesn't look like something is going to happen between them anytime soon… Kara messaged to me. I chuckled. Yeah, they enjoy their bickering way too much…

Anyway, how's your arm? Does it need healing?

I had forgotten about the wound already, and when I looked at my arm, I knew why: It wasn't there anymore! Huh? It's gone…

It has regenerated! Root spoke up in my mind. You unleashed me at the start of the battle, remember?

Yeah, thanks Root! I said to her. She sent me a smile. Anytime.

But you can still do with a cleanup! Kara said and proceeded to cast Restore on me. When the glow faded, the holes in my shirt had disappeared as well as the red stains on my arm. Now that you're all nice and clean again, let's get moving! I want to see the inside of that sanctum…Without warning, she grabbed my hand and started running, dragging me behind her.

How was it? Did you like it? I'm not 100 sure about the scene with Lilly and Lance, before she runs off chasing Gas. Please tell me what you think of it.

Someone wanted to know whether Lance' skin color is unusual. Sorry to disappoint you, but he doesn't look unusual in that respect, since he is only partially Proxian.

Oh and I also need lots of words affiliated with music which can be used as class names, like 'musician' or 'minstrel'. I need them for a series of classes I want to put in. Please put lots of suggestions in your reviews!