Guardians
Marius surveyed his student. He used the term "student" loosely, as it is in itself a loose term. He was trying to teach this student to focus his magic in a different way, which involved completely changing the way the caster's thoughts worked. It was like breaking a particularly vital and addictive habit, only harder.
Marius' casting was ruled primarily by a calm, patient want to help, which worked well, considering he was a monk. In fact, he was one of the five Champions of Gonryun. He regarded everything with calm detachment. The most startled reaction anyone had seen from him had been a nonchalant "oh dear."
His student, he had long decided, was far too organized. He got incredibly agitated if something couldn't be logically ordered into a new, viewable easily-digested something.
They were stood in one of the vast, seemingly useless rooms of Gonryun temple. Gonryun was a cluster of floating islands linked by a spidery network of rickety rope bridges (people would often shriek in protest at the prospect of crossing one of these, seeing them creak, frail and crisp, in even the slightest breeze. But the inadequate looking structures became mysteriously, almost obediently, stable under the foot of those welcome to the islands). The entire mesh of land was named after the temple, Gonryun, cut into the caverns of the largest island. The closest translation for gonryun was "heart of the island." The temple was vast and beautiful, every inch of the walls dazzling with mantras. Navigating the temple was a mercilessly confusing task; the web of rooms was complex, and most decidedly had not been designed with any kind of logic in consideration, as though the builders had just been making it up as they went along. There were a lot of rooms that seemed to handle the apparently vital task of "filling up space."
Marius liked to think of it as organized chaos.
"You're trying to organize it again, Akiro," he said sternly to the young man; he tried to sound stern, but shaking with amusement as the fireball hovering above the sage's palm sheepishly spluttered into a mess of sparks and flames, and obediently became as disorganized as possible.
"I don't understand emotion based magic," said Akiro mildly. "How are you supposed to stop it from going out of control?"
"It's fairly simple," replied Marius knowingly. "You control your emotions."
"Well, that's a nice simple concept for a monk." Akiro shrugged. "What happens if you get angry, then?"
"I wouldn't know."
Akiro smirked at him – his way of letting Marius know he wanted a more airtight answer.
"Well, you shouldn't be casting anything if anger is the root of your focus, because anger is a loss of focus. You would either not be able to cast anything at all or you'd end up blowing your own arms off." Akiro probably knew this already, but he either liked pretending to be less than he was, or he was simply curious.
"These "poisons" monks talk about… is that what they are?"
"Yes. They are qualities that keep you grounded and unable to focus."
"And I guess there must be opposites to these poisons?"
"Obviously, or emotion driven magic wouldn't work. You should probably ask Ruriko about it."
"I doubt she'd be able to word it."
"Marius," said someone sternly from the other end of the pale room. Marius knew only too well who it was. He turned to face his twin sister, Mariel. "We're needed. Now. I believe we have a crisis."
Marius didn't argue. He followed Mariel at a trot, along with Akiro.
"Some of the acolytes just teleported in. They came from the old court," she explained in a monotone. "They were nearly dead."
Marius regarded this news silently before responding. "I thought the court was safe."
At the north end of town (on the largest island) were the ruins of a palace in the caves of the mountain that loomed above the inhabitants of Gonryun. It was thousands of years old, dating back to the time of division, where every region was it's own separate kingdom, instead of being united under the banner of Prontera. There was only one entrance. The place had fallen into disrepair. It tended to be used as a kind of secret meeting place.
"We all thought so," replied Mariel mildly. "However, four of our acolytes are gravely injured, one is missing and another will not survive the night."
x-x-x
They passed the unfortunate acolytes on their way to the surface. Akiro stared at the monks' calm expressions; they weren't looking at the children. A dark haired boy, of around seven or eight, lay silent, his head in the lap of the one of the lesser monks knelt next to him. His eyes were glazed and teary, focused on nothing, and he was barely moving. His clothes were littered with clean, jagged gashes and were drenched in blood. A broken, splintered mess of a club lay next to him. He would be dead by sunrise.
The other four were equally young. They were scarlet with blood, but their faces were strained and white, stricken and crying with fear. One was wailing and clutching her companion's arm tightly.
Marius and Mariel wasted no time in getting to the surface, and they stepped out into one of Gonryun's glorious, bronze sunsets. Sixteen of the lesser monks were assembled and waiting with another of the champions, Kalis.
"Miku said something about a "big snake dragon," said Kalis, securing a pair of armguards in place. "We should hopefully be able to kill it."
"Hopefully?" said Marius gravely.
"It's a miracle they got out alive; we'll leave it at that, shall we," she replied blandly, tilting her head in the direction of the traumatized acolytes. She turned and led them through the town, directly to the court.
The streets were emptying; merchants counted their day's zeny with a series of wealthy clinks, children were called in by their mothers, a group of swordsmen were having a rather heated debate about where they were to spend the night… The bustle of evening activity would dampen as soon as the monks came within sight, as though they were emanating some kind of contagiously calming aura, striding deliberately with grim and emotionless faces.
The old court… felt different. The rock face was now scarred with shadows, and all feeling of warmth and familiarity had been drained from the tired place. Akiro used to play there when he was a boy – there was still the burn on the door from where he'd been… showing off – but now it felt like a madman's playground. Darkness loomed in a clawed cloud around the entrance, coaxing him inside with kind promises of death.
He shook his head. It had to have just been his imagination.
Mariel edged the heavy, red stone door open, and it groaned and rumbled into a dank silence. Akiro winced.
They were immediately met with a rush of air – not the normal gusts of winds that stir the grass. It didn't stir anything into movement, but it threw the atmosphere into blurry disarray; it was sharp and cold, and had a metallic taste and the feel of a blade. The sage looked to Marius, and was slightly relieved to see that the monk had felt it too. He marched forward and led the others in.
Akiro realized that he didn't have any Rodusha cards with him, with a slightly sickening feeling. He thankfully had a pouch filled with gemstones, but no cards. With a nauseating sensation of frailty, he lit his staff with a spell of sight, and heard the rush of spirit spheres. The space fell into a glow of magic, lit, but the darkness fell scowling back into the silent and sneering shadows. He felt a swoosh of wind beneath him, like the beating of wings, and immediately felt lighter, and heard a blessing with his name in it.
Spirit spheres were a reasonably new discovery, and had lead to rapid growth within the monk caste. People still weren't entirely sure about them, and of course, people don't like what they don't understand. Monks were the only ones who were really willing to tamper with them, in the same way that only sages would tamper with "Abracadabra" the most unstable chant in the Language of the Making, only hunters would tame a falcon, only crusaders would use the Holy Cross and only the sparse rangers would call nature to their assistance in their territory. Spirit spheres were the closest thing to raw magic that humans could achieve; humans could enchant objects, they could focus energy into things, they could write runes in the Language of the Making and had found ways to stop the words escaping – they could put magic into things, but spirit spheres didn't require such "cruel" ways to keep them where they were needed. They had enough intelligence to know what was needed, but they weren't necessarily alive.
Some necromancers had claimed that their spirit spheres had distinctive personalities, but since a lot of a spirit sphere's mannerisms depend on it's creator ("creator" is used loosely, as they aren't actually created by the caster. The beginnings of spirit spheres, the affectionately dubbed "constalites", were always around - the caster just enhanced them. The constalites tended to flock to people who summoned spirit spheres often), and something about a necromancer's abilities and the way they went about their lives led to the creation of some very unstable spirit spheres indeed.
The old court was wide and spacious, but it was overrun with dampness and moss; fallen pillars lay in pieces, and cracked and broken tiles were weighted rebelliously to the floor. With darkness falling in great folds around them, it seemed more constricted than anything else. Murky pools of water oozed arbitrarily over the jagged ground, vines strangled the rocks and the air was heavy with malice and difficult to breath. The statues still stood, but they were given life now, with shadows crawling over them, making them glare and jeer.
Akiro seemed to remember it being a rather pleasant when he was young.
"Wait," he said to the monks, almost pleadingly. They turned curiously towards him. He could sense a most wretched, sagging blackness on the air. It was an uncontrollable bloodlust, an insatiable fury, maddening confusion, sickening rage, a blank determination… it was the same relentless desire to kill that gripped the Lord of Death. "It… won't stop at anything," he tried. He didn't know if they could sense it. "It'll kill you. You should stay behind." Well, I can't exactly run, can I, he thought grimly. He'd rather die, standing his ground alone, than lead others to their deaths.
"It's our duty to make sure it doesn't harm anyone else," stated Kalis. The lesser monks looked to Marius for confirmation.
"Lead the way, Akiro," he said.
The air a rush of protests, Akiro traipsed the path his senses urged him not to. The thought that he wasn't required to stay seemed very appealing, but leaving would be the most sickening thing he could do. His eyes shot to the east end of the entrance hall; there were hollows in the rocks like gaping hungry mouths.
His heart stopped as a twig snapped beneath his foot. Kalis walked boldly next to him, her face set. He brought them to a silent halt in front of one of the cave mouths, and peered hard into the shadows, the nauseating feeling that the creature would emerge at any second.
Akiro would scold himself later for this ridiculous mistake. He paused to ready a lightning bolt. He heard Kalis shout, "Focus!" He looked up and fell out of the concentration, and heard the splitting of rocks. The creature stormed through the gap in the mountain with a hissing scream and a blur of scarlet and white, and a jumble of things lunged at them. Akiro and Kalis leapt back, and he aimed his spell at some kind of area that he hoped was it's head, and heard Kalis bark an order at her spirit spheres, and they streaked into an attacking formation.
Snakes emerged from the fray of magic – brilliant, blazing white snakes, like ivory. They brandished long steely fangs from they snapping mouths. One reared and hissed, and appeared to swallow the spirit spheres whole. Another, threw itself at Kalis, and she raised her hands. They found a grip on the attacker's mouth. Her arms shook in their sockets from the effort of the grapple – she couldn't win. She spat out her chant, and a bright white holy light ignited beneath the bladed teeth, exploding dramatically and spraying the wall black with what could only be blood.
The monks streamed forward, striking the creature with metal fists, pounding into a pit of snakes. There was an unbelievable amount of snakes! Akiro searched with wide eyes for the "source", and found what appeared to be a white suit, ripped formidably and red with blood. The snakes unfurled themselves from the collar and sleeves of the robe, all vicious and ruby-eyed. The reptilian heads twisted and lunged after the monks, their jaws making clap noises that made him wince.
An ear-splitting rush of magic, and a lesser monk sank his fist into a head with an earthy THUD, and ploughed straight through, landing deftly on the other side. He looked quite weakened by the endeavour, but a snake dangled, limp and useless from a sleeve of the suit. The monk wheeled around to meet the attack of another head.
Another hefty punch, from Mariel this time, aimed straight for the robe, sent the creature careening into the wall. It reacted quickly, sending a snake after her. She was thrown to the ground, a fang piercing her right shoulder. With mild exasperation, she healed the wound with ease, and pummelled her knuckles into the eye of the offending reptile.
Akiro conjured up the spell of Jupiter Thunder, feeling the bite of electricity in his palm. He threw it at the robe, but the crackling energy soared after the snakeheads, pinning a lot of them to the floor beneath them. This burning, pulsing magic keeping it trapped, the creature screamed like a cymbal and thrashed madly against its electrical bond. A strained head caught a rotting pillar and it toppled towards the monks, and Akiro panicked – he shouted out his chant, and a fireball rocketed at the heavy stone, flinging it across the hall. The monks had charged at the struggling creature, but among the blur of reptilian rage, they couldn't get close. Marius was summoning spirit spheres, which blossomed into the air, then darted at it. Several of the lesser monks had been buffeted back, and a muttering of healing spells lit the air.
The lightning pinning it shattered like a mirror. It flew into an upright position, and snakes streaked out from the robe, tunnelling through the air, and meeting the bodies of seven monks caught roughly off guard. Glittering fangs ripped through their torsos, even that of one lesser monk who glowed with the strong, defensive energy granted by the sacrifice of spirit spheres. They fell. Akiro felt the dampening on the air as lives faded.
Marius ran to one, who was struggling to her feet. Akiro looked back to see a snake ready to rake ferociously at his skin. He instinctively seized a gemstone from his pouch and cast a shield. The snake collided with a wall of blue energy, which shattered instantly, and the force threw him back before he could think. Little coloured dots danced across his vision as his head struck a wall, and he had a dim image of a giant dove flying straight at him.
As he realized it was a snake, he heard a strained, hurried prayer of holy light, and the space between himself and his attacker exploded with white energy. He turned to his rescuer, to discover that it was one of the injured lesser monks, whose body went limp and lifeless a second later. Silently thanking the monk, Akiro cast a quick ice spell, encasing the serpent in cold. He wasted no time in smashing it with his staff. Kalis, Mariel, and the remaining lesser monks were struggling with the other heads, and Marius had healed the three monks who'd survived. They rose uneasily to their feet and teleported away. A little relieved at this image, Akiro summoned up another lightning bolt.
Marius caught a head before it struck him, and a cluster of spirit spheres struck the robe, along with Akiro's lightning. The champion punched the weakened snake, then spun around and kicked it, once with each foot in quick succession. The sage took out a pair of gemstones with fiery orange glow.
"Abracadabra," Akiro whispered menacingly. The ground beneath the creature roared with holy fire – Magnus Excorsimus, the purest kind of hallowed energy. It sang bright white, and the creature retched and screamed against its purity. Marius gave an approving nod to the sage, and reached out his hand and let it rest in the holy energy.
But the creature targeted him again. He dodged one head, and it swerved uncomfortably past him. Another flew out of nowhere and smashed its muscular, scaled body into his stomach. His vision blackened, and a sharp earthy pain blurted out that his head had been split open. A Mariel-shaped white blur battered into the snake, and muttered a quick healing at him. She grappled with her foe, before knocking the head up with an uppercut, and giving it a roundhouse kick straight into its fang. It drew back, shrieking. Another snake answered, shooting straight at her. She was thrown against the wall with a dizzyingly loud BANG!, and fell unconscious.
Akiro woke sharply from his daze, and telekinetically punched Mariel's attacker, catching it in its shining red eye. He was quickly pinned by a gaping, fanged mouth, and Marius ran to his rescue this time. He fought his way through a cluster of heads. Akiro quickly enchanted his hands with lightning, and latched them firmly onto the serpent's head. It reared and snapped in pain, two black burns either side of its face.
Akiro blinked, a blank idea spinning into his mind and making him sag with dread. The heads weren't being subdued. There were dead snakes hanging like vines from the robe, but there seemed to be even more heads than there were before. Each time one of the snakes died…
Two more would take its place.
Oh, shit…
Marius was thrown back and skidded across the mud. In a streak of blue light, he vanished and reappeared next to his target. (It wasn't teleporting, but it wasn't not teleporting either.) He drew back his fist and swung it at the bloodstained robe. It only seemed to crease it slightly; the snakes targeted him. He pounded into the group of heads, limbs becoming a blur of movement and hits. A myriad of spirit spheres shot into the creature from seemingly nowhere, and Akiro threw a lightning bolt at it. Several snakes furled around precariously, and with a sudden whoosh hurled themselves at the monks. What felt like relief littered their faces as they strafed around the attack – but there was still the crunch of crushed bones from somewhere. The injured teleported away quickly.
"Marius, we're getting nowhere," Akiro shouted urgently.
Marius regarded the statement grimly as he smashed his leg into the palette of a serpent's mouth and leapt out of the way of another.
"He's right; everyone, retreat," he called after about a second.
A streak of blue light ran cleanly through the creature and Kalis stepped away from it, and immediately broke into a run towards the unconscious Mariel. Several of the lesser monks teleported with haste. Akiro turned to run, having to throw himself to the ground to avoid an attacking snakehead. He scrambled up frantically, and sprinted for the door, Marius close behind.
Akiro's ears were roaring. All the places he'd hit his head throbbed in protest with each step, and he could still feel the fury of the snake creature behind him. There was a cry and a smashing of something against rock, and the sagging of the air that came with death. The familiar rush of an attacking serpent, and a hurried teleport chant. He conjured a lightning bolt and threw it over his shoulder at the creature, and heard a roar of both anguish and annoyance. He heard them gain a little distance.
He summoned another bolt, and began to throw it, but something bashed painfully into his back, right between his shoulder blades. The air was pummelled out of his lungs, and he fell forward, gasping, dimly aware of the flash of lightning cast quite some way over to the left of the troop – he'd dropped the spell.
He suddenly felt someone forcefully lifting him to his feet, and helping him stumble to the door. There was a whistle of spirit spheres attacking. Annoyed, he cast a wall of fire, and it erupted with a bright roar beneath the creature, but it didn't seem to have noticed it.
Aware again, he breathed a thank you to his helper, and threw a telekinetic punch behind him. It knocked it back slightly.
A lesser monk heaved the door open, and was gone. Kalis went through with Mariel, and Marius shoved Akiro through before escaping himself.
This is no good! It was going to come out, and it was going to slaughter Gonryun. He shouted the question, and was met with no answer. He'd been so busy running with his tail between his legs that he hadn't thought of the innocent people who lived in the town. And they were all going to die. He would die, his mother would die, Marius would die… all of them would die! Gonryun would be destroyed, and there was nothing he could do.
He wrenched his hand angrily into the pouch at his side, and drew out a fistful of catalyst gemstones. He cast as many shields as he knew how. He wasn't about to not do anything. He'd rather wind up dead for doing something rather than doing nothing at all.
Seven blue stones heated within his palm and shattered.
"Akiro, what are you-…?"
He didn't listen.
"Vaya pro stillo iero né," he shouted at the doors, as he listened to the thrashing and breaking of shields. You will not leave this place.
Something was working – he could feel magic flowing through his palms. He opened his fist, and the gems rose, glowing, and some shattered. He traced the rune of sealing over the air, and it took form.
He shouldn't have done this. No one had ever attempted a sealing like this without ritual implements. It would have been easy with a sacrifice – the energy released at someone's death is something very powerful indeed. But there wasn't time. He had to stop this, and he had stop to it now.
"Iero puita." Total sealing. The gemstones broke into glittering shards, and his staff burned painfully away into white ashes in his other hand."Eno va shi stai."
He felt the strain of the spell immediately. Iero was not a word to be used to any human spell. The energy he was channelling was so raw and filled with power he felt as though rips were forming in his skin. He gritted his teeth and seared through the pain, and veiled the mountain with the sealing, forcing it down and gasping with pain. He had to focus it with his hands, one of which had been burnt badly by his staff. It shrieked at him, begging him to stop. It wasn't that simple; you can't leave a spell half-cast.
The cage of magic constricted and wrapped itself around the mountain, in forced, jagged movements. Nothing would break out from it. Everything was closed off from it. All the while, he struggled to keep his own life in him. His soul, so set on casting the seal, was trying to be part of it and leave his body as an empty shell.
With a last, gasping effort, he sealed it. He felt the sensation of having fallen a great distance and landed on something soft, and it was getting softer all the time. He collapsed into a heap, trying to heave air back into his lungs. He'd felt tired before, but this complete lack of energy… he felt so weak. The skin over his bones felt heavy; he could barely keep his eyes open.
No, I'm not going to fall unconscious… this is…
His thoughts slowed down. Someone was shouting to him, but it was as though the sound was coming through a very thick wad of cotton. Sleep dragged him down under as though it were drowning him. He fought to stay awake.
He had no strength to fight.
The world left him with a cold, black nothing.
-X-X-
Kyo's time in Comodo was drawing to a close; she didn't know how to tell her friends. She was sat with Kura who was pawing through one of the store cupboards in a strange frenzy that Kyo never thought she'd see in her companion.
Kura wasn't that much of a dancer; her movements were fluid, but she fell into a lot of the common mistakes that others did with the more difficult routines. She could do a dance, but she couldn't make it her dance, she said, like Tassy and Kyo could. However, she more than made up for it with her broad range of skills in musical instruments. It was required at Comodo School of Music and Dance to play at least one instrument, but a lot of people took two. Taiken had had to take four, as he was so appalling at archery that he needed to balance out his grades to get into the senior classes, and then later graduate. Kyo was good with tambourines and castanets and such, and played the flute. Kura played no fewer than eight instruments. She was the best percussionist in the school; she spent a lot of time challenging Leo to "guitar races", which she normally won (unless the key was a melodic minor, which she had decided, quite firmly, sounded horrible anyway); she was the school's only oboe player. On top of all that, she could play the harp, the violin, the cello, the flute and the viola (which some very arrogant people claimed didn't count as an eighth instrument as it wasn't held or played any differently from the violin. Kyo could feel the difference – the viola was huge compared to the violin.)
Consequently, this made for a fairly interesting list of identity cards. They weren't cards the students carried themselves, but they had to be kept "for official purposes." Kyo's was fairly average: Kyo surname abandoned, no living relatives, Major – dance, Soprano, Flute, Handheld percussion. Tassy claimed hers didn't have character: Tassy Mirya, Major – dance, Soprano, Violin. Taiken and Leo had decided that anyone who saw their cards would figure out how sexy they both were, or something… Taiken Loris, Major – instrumental, Tenor, Guitar, Violin, Harp, Flute. Leo Aranko, Major – instrumental, Bass, Guitar, Violin, Percussion. It was easy to spot Kura's from the list, for a very easy, self-evident reason. Kura Soroka, Major – instrumental, Alto, Percussion, Guitar, Harp, Flute, Cello, Violin, Viola, Oboe. Kura was generally accepted as one of the greatest instrumentalists the school had seen.
There'd been a lot of protest (mainly from the barons of the separate towns) about these cards including the students' surnames. Knowing someone's surname was a fairly intimate thing. The teachers had quickly claimed with slight exasperation that if a student couldn't trust their teacher, then they shouldn't be in the school. It was not socially acceptable to ask an acquaintance or stranger for their surname. It would probably draw a lot of blank, disgusted stares if it ever happened. It was a taboo not to be broken.
People were given the name their parents gave them, and their family's surname, and, although a lot of people didn't bother, a person could change it whenever they wanted. People with no living relatives tended to discard their names, as Kyo had done. Some people changed their birth name – Kyo knew Draco's had been Dariko. Chisel's had been Daemond, but he (somehow – not even Chisel himself knew how; he laughed and said it had just happened) had become known as Chisel. She didn't know what Hawk's birth name had been. Only two members of the God's Cry had surnames. Hawk, Oshi, and Kyo had no relatives, and Draco and Ruriko had been disowned by their family. So Kyo's full name was, in fact, Kyo. It made her sad.
"Are you sure you don't need to give up any instruments?" Kyo frequently sprung this question on Kura, out of earnest astonishment.
"I do fine. I'd give up an instrument if you gave up a dance." Kura frequently replied to the frequent question with this frequent answer, out of earnest astonishment. "Did you really learn how to fight?"
The Bard and Dancer caste had its own manual of martial arts. Kyo, aiming to be an "active" dancer (active dancer being the polite and slightly less stupid sounding term for fighting dancer) had indeed learnt it, but…
"I'm still not much of a fighter though," she sighed. "I have got to be the weakest member of the guild. I don't understand why I can't be a strong fighter."
"Well, that stuff's all self-defence really, isn't it?" Kyo nodded, a little glumly. "Then it's supposed to be in case any dirty old men try and coax you into dark alleys to have their way with you."
"Don't they teach it to other castes though?" Kyo had only now just realized just how naive she was. Arie had been such an isolated place.
"Nope," replied Kura instantly. "It's mainly dancers they're concerned about with this defence stuff. A thief can kick and bite their way out of anyone's grip; a swordsmen has to know it anyway; a mage can… set people on fire; it's a sin to mess with an acolyte-…"
"Yes, but they're all just kids."
"… If you're a dirty old man, you aren't going to try and rape a knight, crusader, paladin… any of those – they'd smash your head into a wall. A gladiator would probably eat you. Sentinels wear those big black suits of armour, so you can't even tell if they're a man or a woman. Hazard control stays out of the way. Wizards would set you on fire, sages would set you on fire…" She counted with her fingers as she said this. "There are hardly any hermits nowadays, and they'd probably talk you to death. One of the stupidest things you could do is go after an assassin, or rogues or pirates or whatever. Tamers and rangers would just shout at a lot of wildlife to get you the hell off them and a necromancer would get some dead people to kill you…"
"We're sidetracking a bit here, aren't we?" Kyo said, smirking.
"… Um… the point with bards and dancers, those of the feminine pursuit mainly, is that people just assume that we're either harlot-types or we don't know how to fight someone off. See?"
"What are we looking for again?" the other asked, still smirking but feeling a little scandalised now.
"Ah, yeah! Some C sharp and B flat bells."
"For a nice D Harmonic minor scale?" She wasn't in the lesson, but any musician knew the tone and a half rule with harmonic minors. After all, it was what made them harmonic.
Kyo put her elbow down to lean on as she said this, winced, and regretted it. The previous lunchtime (about half an hour ago it had been) she had come up with the concept of Table Olympics, affectionately named after the sports that took place in Prontera before they spoke commontongue (apart from the Table part.) It involved an ordinary table. The participant knelt on said table and leant over one side. Without touching the floor, they swung themselves underneath and got back onto the table by the other side. Kyo, having invented it, was quite good at it, but was severely crippled by her lack of height. She often got stuck with the majority of her body latched to the underside of the table, and her arms reaching quite desperately for the other side of it. Her arms, ankles, and stomach were littered with bruises.
Taiken and Leo had been surprisingly awesome at it – Taiken had managed to swing himself under the table and up again three times in a row before leaning over the side for a fourth time, and falling nonchalantly to the floor. "Ow. That hurt," he said blandly.
"You do know I'm leaving in a few days?" Kyo blurted out suddenly.
Kura lost the static restlessness of her search and sagged visibly.
"Yeah," she said with as little emotion as possible. The girls continued their search in sullen silence. Kyo fought for something to say, but she'd gone completely blank. She wanted to cry, but wasn't completely sure why.
-X-X-
Arne had never noticed before the sinking sullenness that came with being incapacitated. In his estimation, he was weak and useless, and theoretically, he should have known to flee earlier in the fight and failing that, he should have been able to fend off the creature when it attacked him.
He felt heavy the entire time, and he was constantly exhausted. If he stayed up too long, he would become dizzy and sick with fatigue, and he'd have to retire to bed. He was given a vial of a foul tasting potion everyday; the alchemist named Pious, who'd prescribed the mixture, told him that it would speed up his body's natural healing process and replenish the blood he'd lost.
His position wasn't exactly uncommon. Priests could close wounds, but there was often a problem with blood loss, and a lot of fighters were forced to take a rest period until they were fit again.
If it weren't for Tristan, he'd have lost track of time completely. He spent most of the days following the fight with the golden thief bug sleeping, like an old man, he thought bitterly. Everyone around him suddenly seemed incredibly superior, and his feelings of inadequacy sank like a dank mist inside him. He felt grey shame prickle miserably into him every time he had to vacate and leave whoever he was with to go back to bed.
"You really shouldn't be up," Hester insisted gently, like a mother scolding a boisterous son. She was holding a cup of some bitter, herbal brew that was wafting a floral scent through the room that made him feel sleepy. Healing magically was difficult to master, and until acolytes were capable of it, they were taught herbal remedies.
Arne didn't reply. He knew he was being stubborn; but he'd rather stay stubborn, he decided, than become mentally weak and take to his bed like a sick child. He was required to be strong-minded.
And Hester didn't have anything else to say. She carefully placed the steaming herbal drink on his bedside table and withdrew bitterly from the room.
The Barons were not helping either; Arne saw them fleetingly, and he wished it was less. He steeled himself against their snide, subtle comments, and gave them the usual politely interested gaze he had learned as a boy. Before, he could merely brush them off as arrogant fools, and they remained arrogant; it was just they were now oppressively superior rather than arrogant. They were so deliberate and harsh with their words, but the situation seemed incredibly immature. The challenge wasn't discernable, and they were in no way "correct", or "right", or "superior", but they carried a smug I-told-you-so kind of air about them.
Tristan, evidently, had noticed it, and Arne could almost see the prince's teeth grinding and his eyes darken. The wizard's power of empathy was basic at best, but it was chilling the way Tristan's mood would become dangerously and coldly furious. You're sure you're fine all up and about, wizard? they would say. I do worry about the High Wizards, they would say. Too bad we cannot appoint new guardians of Geffen, they would whisper audibly.
x-x-x
Culvert was really beginning to weigh heavily on Tristan's mind. He had talked to Hester about it. She had said the thing they had fought was a giant, golden thief bug, and could easily wipe out the fighters on the above levels, and cause serious damage to Prontera. He knew all of the above, apart from the thing being giant and golden. Arne worried him too. He painfully regretted letting the high wizard go down. Kenji had assured the prince that he himself was fine, and Hester also insisted that there was no lasting damage.
He knew he'd reached the decision long ago, but now he had the go ahead signal. He summoned Sebek, leader of the Sentinels guild. He was slightly miffed; he never thought he'd have to use them. They were a specialist group of knights, with strict discipline, phenomenal fighting skills and unwavering loyalty, carefully selected as babies and assembled into fighters under the orders of Tristan's father. They were more like a troop than a guild. They were something like bodyguards, but they had been trained from birth to be all… bodyguard-like. Tristan didn't understand all of it, and he didn't need to.
As soon as the cardinal Sentinel stepped into his presence, he immediately wished for an alternative, or at least about six or seven more inches to be added to his own height. Sebek stood as still as a gargoyle, in heavy black armour, and no individual features discernable. His frame was bulky like a mountain, and the design of the armour was sharp and littered in red and silver etching. He was something of a man-mountain. His boots went rattle when he moved, and he gave a firm salute. There were two heavy thin swords in jet-black scabbards at his waist.
"You're definitely Sebek?" asked Tristan.
"Yes, your excellency." Oh, by the void, his voice is deep too… "You summoned me."
"Yes, but I can't see your face; for all I know, you could be an acolyte on stilts." Some of his confidence returned; he could speak his mind.
"I understand, my lord. Is my lord assembling the Sentinels?"
"Indeed I am. You have heard about the recent developments of the Culvert situation?"
"I believe so. We will proceed directly?"
"… I think so."
"Very good, my lord."
The walking black statue bowed and left, snapping sternly to the knights at the door that he would need provisions for fourteen people prepared immediately.
"Wo! I didn't mean right now!" Tristan called in surprise.
x-x-x
With Excel was a strange girl named Hyatt, who was actually interested in alchemy. The girl had to be really – she was most physically weak person Excel had ever encountered.
They were gathering ingredients for the alchemy store cupboard, which had been depleted into something gloopy and useless (by the hands of Excel.) Well, Excel was gathering ingredients – she had to take Hyatt with her because of the girl's frail health, which was in fact the reason why her parents made her study alchemy. It was not wise to leave Hyatt by herself.
The plains to the west of Prontera were a satisfactory landscape. The trees were darkening and their leaves were preparing to shiver into amber corpses. Porings ambled (well… bounced. But it was their version of ambling, since ambling is quite difficult when one lacks limbs) over the still grass with the urgency of a glass of water.
Hyatt was good at alchemy. She was a sickly girl with white skin, which contrasted nauseatingly with limp, wavy black hair. Her eyes were deep set, and dark like her hair, and had a pleasant warmth to them. She smiled vaguely just about all the time. Her alchemist's boots looked too big for her. She reached into her cart, fumbled carefully through a strange assortment of bottles, and drew out a half empty bottle of sharp-white liquid.
Hyatt's average day involved fainting a fair few times, no less than three naps, and the consumption of several stimulating potions, all home made of course. Such was the extreme frailty of her health.
"I would love to be able to find a way to give these a nice flavour," she said amiably. "But when you have something so much, you forget to taste it."
Excel nodded automatically, then frowned to herself. She was in the middle of dissecting a chonchon. The lining of large insect's stomach was a good catalyst. She stowed the slimy, tissue-like substance into a pouch tied crudely to her belt, sheathed her knife, and picked up her hammer.
Chisel said it was always a treat to see her wield her hammer, after he'd finished laughing. While Chisel was five foot eleven, Excel was just four foot nine, and not showing any signs of growing any taller. However, Excel's favourite weapon was a rather weighty hammer, taller than Chisel, and incredibly heavy. Excel could lift it easily; it slowed her down considerably, but she could swing it with strength. Consequently, she'd developed broad shoulders, and it was apparently quite a sight to see such a short, seemingly innocent girl, complete with braided blonde pigtails, charging angrily at her foe wielding a hammer most gladiators wouldn't even consider trying to lift.
Excel paused mid-step, her mind wondering impatiently what was wrong. It was about a second before she realized that the earth was shivering. It was unsettling.
She held her hammer over her shoulder and beadily scanned the landscape. Of course, there were other people around, mainly youngsters. A few seemed to have noticed that something was going on.
Suddenly, an archer pointed and made a loud exclamation of awe, waving his hand a little madly at the West Prontera gate. Excel saw the guards exchange sniggers at the child's reaction. Too focused on the guards, she had the impression of a black cloud blossoming into the bright plains. Blinking and swinging her attention to this new something, she found a troop of dark-armoured knights, all sharp edges and heaviness. Metal boots punished the earth with each of their steps. They moved in perfect sync. They looked like soulless shells, no people inside the armour, no faces to be seen, and the only recognisable characteristic of their walk was raw strength. They towered taller and taller as they drew nearer. Elegant red plumes furled from their helmets with the grace of the wind. There was definitely grace to their walk, but it was so full of power that such a delicate word may not have been appropriate.
There was a faint "Oh me, oh my," next to her, which Excel ignored, much to her regret later. She stared numbly at the new arrivals. She didn't bother counting them, but there were quite a few. They stripped the plains to silence with their indomitable presence. Excel's grip tightened around her hammer as she noticed the weapons peering from their sides. They passed her, making her heart speed up, without so much as acknowledging her presence… or anyone else's presence for that matter. They were all so… calm. They proceeded to their destination directly, ignoring the stillness that followed them.
They could only be the Sentinel's guild, which Excel knew very little about. She knew they were supposed to be quite scary (They so were not! her mind spluttered a little indignantly. They were so different from scary…) and that they wore black armour. They carried no distinguishing features that identified them as people. They seemed more like puppets, though not so frail and will-less; more, they were given orders, which they saw through by themselves.
She suddenly remembered that she had a companion with her, and wheeled around to exclaim, "Wow!" and launch into a mad flurry of sentences filled with awe.
Hyatt was lying on the floor, unconscious. Excel gave an exasperated groan and started searching through the unhealthy girl's cart for an awakening or stimulating potion, or something, which would revive her… There were a surprisingly large number that fitted those categories, and they all seemed to be for different types of fainting. Excel stacked the promising-looking bottles as neatly as she could, then gave the slightest sigh of relief when she found instructions, which were helpfully entitled List of Vital Potions. Note: Vital. Very important.
Um… said Excel's imagination as she stared at the paper.
She eventually found words that fit the situation.
"I have never seen so many words on one piece of paper in my whole life," she murmured slowly.