Chapter I – Party Setup
Payon Cave, F3. A loud, terrified scream suddenly breaks the silent of the apparently empty dungeon, followed by the soud of furrious footsteps. A teenage acolyte boy runs through the darkness of the creepy cavern, followed by a swordswoman that looks slightly younger than him. Chasing after then, a human figure covered by the shadows hops almost as fast as they can run.
"A Bongun!" yelled the swordswoman to her companion "A friggin' Bongun! Couldn't you had healed some skeleton, maybe even a Munak? But, no, you had to provoke a Bongun! Now he's gonna friggin' kill us!"
"Like if it was all my falt!" the acolyte yelled back as they ran as fast as they could "You're the one who got us here in the first place! We shouldn't even had left the first level!"
"Ah, who the hell cares whose falt it is? Just run!"
Suddenly, they stopped. The young swordswoman almost hit her head on the acolyte's back with the sudden break. Another figure was standing in front of then. A young girl dressed in red. The two adventurers stepped back with their faces filled with pure terror as the Munak stepped towards then. The soud of the Bongun's hopping was getting closer behind then. The Munak then raised her right arm slowly, and the acolyte boy placed his body in front of his companion, trying to protect her, and closed his eyes waiting for the blow. But it never came. When the young boy opened his eyes, he couldn't be more surprised with what he saw. The Munak girl was standing behind the young swordswoman, holding a strage shapped, colorful club, which edge had pierced into the Bongun's body like a spear. The undead boy fell to the ground as she removed the club from his chest, and his body vanished like smoke, deep dark smoke.
"What the hell--" shouted the swordswoman when she saw the scene. The Munak then turned her face around and stared at then, her eyes hidden behind the amulet attached to her hat. The acolyte boy was ready to cast a heal spell on her when they heard a female voice shouting.
"Kirya!" said the voice. The Munak girl then attached her punisher onto the back of her clothing and with her right hand raised her amulet in order to see better. She and the two adventurers watched in silent as a young mastersmith girl came out of the shadows, walking towards then. "So here's where you've been. Why do you always have to take off like that?" said the mastersmith, staring at the Munak and completely ignoring the two kids.
"It's not my falt if you're too slow to keep pace with me." said the Munak, looking rather annoyed. "And why do I always have to go where YOU wanna go? Why don't you try to go after me sometimes, just for a change?"
"Whatever." said the mastersmith girl. "I don't even know why do enjoy so much killing those things. I tought you liked this Bongun guy, or whatever the name is."
"You wouldn't get it, even if I explained." the Munak replied, hiding her face behind the amulet again.
"Whatever." said the young mastersmith, one hand on her waist, as she used the other one to remove from her face the waterfall of gold hair that fell from under the oversized boy-ish cap she was wearing. "Hunn... an aco and a swordie, eh?" she finally seemed to take notice of the two kids standing right in front of her. "Now, just what are you two doing down here? Trying to get killled or something?"
"Yeah, the genious here tought the monsters of the first level were too weak for us and decided to go a little further." said the swordswoman, pointing at her acolyte companion.
"Yeah, yeah, I know it was stupid. But who are you to say anything? You're the one who got us lost here. I just said we should go check on the second level and see if we could deal with it." the acolyte boy replied, clearly annoyed.
"Yeah, I got it already, you're both idiots, now stop fighting." said the mastersmith, breaking then apart. "So, since you guys are lost here and problably won't make it out of the cave alive by yourselves... why don't you tell me who you are, so we can all be friends and I'll get you outta here?"
"I'm Hinata." said the swordswoman. "And that aco jerk is..."
"Sasuke." the acolyte completed, with a tone of annoyance in his voice.
"Okay. Sasuke and Hinata, right? I'm Aiko. Mastersmith Aiko. And that--" said the blonde girl poiting at the Munak "--is Kirya."
"Just because you want to." Kirya replied, shaking her head to get the amulet out of her eyes "I told ya a million times my name is Munak. I don't even know where did you take that silly nickname from anyway."
"It's not silly. It's a cute name! And besides, Munak is such a generic name these days..." Aiko said, crossing her arms.
"So that monster is with you?" Hinata asked.
"Monster? MONSTER! Who the hell are you calling a monster, you ---!" Kirya yelled, waving her punisher angryly in the air. "Ever looked at yourself in the mirror!"
"I don't think that's what she meant, Kirya..." Aiko said, trying to calm her down.
"Yeah, I'm talking about the fact that you're a friggin' zombie." Hinata continued.
"I'm not a darn zombie, I'm a kyonshee! Ky-on-shee! Can't you people tell the difference!"
"Whatever, it's all undead anyway..."
Kirya was clearly trying very hard not to hit Hinata in the head, holding her punisher strongly with both hands, almost breaking it in two.
"This girlfriend of yours--" Aiko whispered in Sasuke's ear "--she really wanna die,doesn't she?"
"She's my sister..." Sasuke whispered back "Our parents are married. Seens like she thinks she's wonder woman just because her dad's a Lord Knight..."
"Hello!" Hinata shouted angryly "I can hear every word you're saying, you jerk!"
"You are a jerk." Kirya said, staring at her with a serious look in her face "I'd expect a little more gratitude, considering I just saved your life."
Kirya looked and acted pretty much like a 13 or 14 year old, although she was problably much older than that. Instead of the usual braid, her long, curly, brown hair was loose, what made it even harder to see her face. Even tought she liked to make it very clear that she was a kyonshee, she seemed to be more confortable using her legs for actually walking instead of hoping around.
"Okay, okay, whatever. Can we just move now?" Aiko said, starting to get annoyed and impatient "Or am I the only one who wants to get the hell outta this cave?"
"Okay, I'm moving... I hate this place anyway..." Hinata complained as she walked after Aiko, who had already started to walk away. Sasuke and Kirya then followed after then. The Munak was still very annoyed with the idea of having to walk around with the swordswoman. Sasuke, on the other hand, only cared about getting out of the Payon Cave before they ran into a legion of undead monsters.
The group walked for a long time inside the dark cavern, bashing, healing and hitting their way through the dozens of undeads they ran into. After a rather long fight with a huge group of skeletons in the entrace of the second level, they stopped to rest, since the first level was already safe for then. Sasuke healed his sister, Aiko and himself, and then stared at Kirya for a while.
"Heal me and you're a dead aco." she said, and he turned his face alway in the same moment.
"So... what are you guys doing in Payon anyway? Aren't you supposed to be training somewhere in Prontera?" Aiko asked her new companions.
"Prontera doesn't have any strong monster." Hinata answered. "Just a bunch of porings and stuff. But what about you? I tought merchants were from Alberta. And if you're that strong, why would you waste your time in here?"
"I didn't came here to train. I came here for Moonlight. I only headed back because of you two."
"Moonlight Flower? I've never seen her, so I don't really know, but the people in the town says she's very dangerous." Sasuke said, entering the chat.
"She's very strong, it's true. But the townspeople exaggerate too much. She ran away last time we fought, so I'm back to challenge her again. Last time I got that punisher Kirya carries around from her. This time, I'm after the real prize, the Moonlight Dagger."
"Oh, right, you're a mastersmith. That's what you guys do, right? Look for rare stuff?" Hinata said.
"I don't want it just because it's rare. Of course it would look great in my collection, but that's not why I want it." Aiko said, with a slightly sad tone, turning her head down.
"Then why do want that Dagger so much?" Hinata sked, withrout noticing the change in her voice.
"Despite the fact that I'm a merchant, I'm from Payon. My older brother Ryu was an Archer. He loved this place. Always spent most of the day in here, training. Then, when he came back, he'd tell me all those stories about the Payon Cave. His biggest dream was becoming stronger so he could visit the only level in the cave he had never been to, and defeat the Moonlight Flower. He always brought me a lot of gifts from here, so I decided I wanted to be a merchant, so I couldn't collect all the items that existed in the world. When I told him that, he said that when he defeated the Moonlight Flower, he would bring me the most beautiful and rare item of the Payon Dungeon, the Moonlight Dagger. But he never got to the last level. He was killed by Edgga when he was on his way to the hunter guild." Aiko then hidded her head under her hair, while holding her legs together tightly. Kirya sighed, but it was impossible to see her expression, for her amulet was covering her face.
"I see." said Sasuke, with a serius look on his face "So you're doing this for your brother."
"Yeah." Aiko answered. "After he died, 8 years ago, I went to Alberta to became a merchant. It's been 4 years since the last time I visited Payon. That's when I met Kirya. I had just became a blacksmith then."
She then raised her head and stood up.
"But that's enough talking." she said "Time to get moving."
Aiko then grabbed her cart, in which Kirya was sitted, and began walking again, followed by the two siblings. Getting past the zombies and skeletons of the first level wasn't much of a challenge, and they soon were standing at the cave's entrance, in the Payon Archer Village.
"Argh! Too...much...light...!" Kirya complained, covering her eyes as they left the cave.
"Bah! You spent almost 30 years in that cave and I didn't see you camplaining when you left!" Aiko said, annoyed by her Munak's over reaction.
"Finally, were're out of that stupid place!" said Hinata, stretching her arms.
"I'm just glad we made it in one piece." said Sasuke, relieved. "Thanks to miss Aiko. By the way, I'm sorry that you had to come all the way back just because of us."
"Nah, that was nothing. And you can cut the 'miss' part off of my name." Aiko said, cherfully. "So, what do you guys plan on doing now? 'Cause I don't think you'd want to go back in there."
"Not in a million years!" Hinata shouted.
"I dunno really. Maybe we could just go train in the forest. Or go back to Prontera..." wondered Sasuke.
"Why don't we go to Comodo?" Kirya suggested.
"That's a great idea!" Aiko agreed. "I can visit the casino again, you guys can go training, Kirya can go visit her precious Kokomo Beach and everybody gets happy!"
"I tought Comodo mosters were even worse than Payon Cave." Hinata said.
"Not if you have my help" Aiko replied. "And besides, the monsters in that Mao Cave only attack if you attack then first. Except those stupid neraids, but I can take care of then."
"If it's okay by you, then Comodo's good enought for me." Sasuke said.
"Yeah...we don't have anywhere better to go to anyway." Hinata agreed.
"Then we're set. Our little party here's heading to Cave City Comodo!" said a smiling Aiko, while they walked toward the town of Payon.