Dragonmaster: Chapter 6
As they enter Meribia, Nash speaks up, "Well here we are. Meribia and the greatest port city in the world. Now that I have escorted you hicks here safely I must go about my business. See ya!" With that he turns around and heads off without looking back and flicks a small salute.
Nall sputters and cry out, "YOU brought US here safely? And just exactly where are you going?"
"That, my furry flying cat, is none of your business." With that Nash disappears around the corner, leaving the group. Ranma and the others just looks at each other for a bit, then shrugs and quickly puts it out of their minds.
Shaking himself out of his daze, and not without considerable jiggling, Ramus turns towards them with that familiar glint of greed in his eyes. "Well, looks like I'm off too. Money waits for no man and the sooner I sell this rock, the sooner I get to make my dreams of rolling around in gold come true!" With that, Ramus waddle-runs towards the biggest shop he can find.
"Well, that leaves the five of us." Saying this, Ranma motions towards himself and the rest of the group. "What do you guys want to do now?"
Luna takes a deep breath and looks at the bustling city. "It's... so different here. Let's take a look around. It's our first time at a city this big. Right you guys?"
Alex nods in agreement, but Ranma just shrugs. Eh.. I guess it's big. Tokyo was bigger, but no need to tell them that.
As they wander around looking at the shops and restaurants Ranma's stomach growls. Alex, Luna, Caine, and Nall all turns to look at him. Putting his hand behind his head, Ranma gives off an embarrassed laugh. "How 'bout we go eat now?"
Nall quickly joins in, "Yeah! I want some fish! Fish!" Quickly looking around, Nall finds the biggest restaurant and points at it. "Oooh that one looks nice. How about we eat there?"
Alex looks into the money pouch that they received for killing
the Slimer from the captain says with a shrug, "Sure. Why not? We
have plenty of money and splurging once in a while's not bad." Saying
this, Alex, Luna, Caine and Nall both starts heading towards the
restaurant. That is,until they notice that Ranma isn't following them.
"What's wrong Ranma?"
Ranma motions them over and says, "Well, since this is your first time in a city and all, let me teach you guys something. Listen closely, I learned this with my pop during my years of training." Ranma points at the restaurant, bustling with sailors and pirates, "That is what we call a tourist trap. It's there to bring people like you guys who's not familiar with this place to eat at a place with sub-par food and high prices. Look, none of those people eating there are locals."
Continuing with his lecture, Ranma says, "If you want to find a good place to eat, you have to go into one of the small streets." Motioning, he leads his students towards a random small street. "We'll start here."
As they walk down the street, the stores begins to look... odd.
Luna finally speaks up. "Umm.. Ranma? I don't see anyplace around here
that even remotely looks like a place to eat."
A small sweat drop forms over his head. Laughing a bit, he says, "Umm.. well... I-"
Whatever he was about to say became interrupted by Caine shouting out, "Hey! Look. Isn't that Nash over there? It is! Who's that he's talking to?"
As they head over, the person speaking with Nash notices them. Indicating with the jerk of her chin, she asks, "Friends of yours Nash?"
Nash whirls around and lo and behold, it' his newfound friends. "What are you guys doing here?"
Alex answers, "We were looking around for somewhere to eat. What about you? And who's your friend?" Now that they came closer, they began to notice new details about the person. The woman, was dressed in long loose cloak, covering most of her figure, but her face showed a young woman with short cropped, almost page-like blond hair and a blue lightning tattoo below her right eye.
As Nash opens his mouth, the woman starts off by saying, "I'm a fortune teller. I-"
Abruptly, Ranma interrupts what she was going to say. "Sorry. No thanks. We don't have the money. We don't want whatever it is you're selling." With this, he herds everyone away,leaving the fortune teller with a stunned look on her face. A small shiver creeps up Ranma's back. Brrr... She reminds me of Nabiki...
As they walk away, Alex turns to Ranma and ask, "What was that all about?"
"Nothing. I just had a bad feeling about her." Then a knowing smile crosses Ranma's face. He leans over, close to Alex's ears and whispers, "What... you wanted your love fortune told or something?"
Alex yelps out, "RANMA!" Then as Luna looks at the two curiously, he quickly lowers his voice and shushes Ranma and gives him an annoyed look.
As they walked back to where they came from, a delicious,
mouth-watering smell of roast duck and potatoes, along with seared
fresh tuna wafts through the air. Both Nall's and Caine's eyes blanks
out as they turn towards the source of the smell. Speaking in unison,
they utter the word, "FISH" and floats towards the source of the smell.
A massive mansion.
"Nall! Caine! Where are you two going?" Luna calls out. Quickly they chase after the two flying cats, but they reach them too late. Both of the animals slips through the window and into the mansion.
A high pitched voice calls out from the other side of the window. It's Nall. "Hey! You guys get in here. There's a mountain of food like you wouldn't believe!"
Ranma's eyes lights up at the mention of food. Quickly he climbs over the window and into the house. Luna grabs at him, but the call of hunger is just too much. Luna turns to Alex and finally Alex just shrugs and says, "When in Vane..." With that phrase, he clamors over the window also.
Luna gives off a small groan and slowly pulls herself up while quietly muttering, "We shouldn't be doing this... we shouldn't be doing this..."
When Luna climbs over, she saw Nall, Caine, and Ranma gorging themselves on someone else's food, while Alex was taking guilty bites here and there. All of a sudden, the door, to what was now obviously the dining room, slams open and a huge beastman enters the room. "Time for my lun-" The beastman abruptly cuts off what he was going to say and everything and everyone in the room seems to freeze in time. With Nall and Caine, their heads buried in the turkey, Ranma with a fistful of mashed potatoes, Alex in the process of grabbing for a biscuit, and finally Luna, one foot over the window sill, obviously in the process of climbing into the house.
An eternity passes in a blink of an eye, then the beastman roars and everyone jumps. The hulking man stomps over to Alex and gets in his face. "So... you thieves thought that you can climb into MY house and eat MY food and get away?"
Ranma opens his mouth to make some sort of retort or excuse quickly shuts his mouth again and becomes quiet. He just saw the man's features. Haired all over his body, the man had tufts of cat years and feline features that just screamed a lion's fury.
Alex looks around quickly and seeing no help coming quickly took control of the situation. "Umm.. We're sorry sir. We just came from Burg and we were looking around, when two of our... pets came into your window. We followed them in... and... I guess we got caught up by the food." He started off hesitant, but by the end of the excuse, he was looking the beastman straight in the eye.
The man considers Alex for a bit, then bursts our laughing. "I like you boy! But you still ate my lunch, so I'm going to have to see if there is anyway you can make up for that." With that, the man pauses to think for a bit, then slaps the table with a grin on his face. "Now that the food is gone, I say we need some sort of entertainment. What do you say to that?"
A small feeling of dread creeps into his stomach as Alex replies, "I guess we can do that..."
"Good. Then follow me." With that, he leads them down the hallway to another room. It turns out to be a large dojo, and the sick feeling in Alex's stomach doubles. A blind man can see what's coming next. The man reaches over and grabs a practice blade and tosses it over to Alex. "If you can put up a good fight, then I'll forget all about what you and you're friends did."
Seeing no way he can get out of it, he takes the blade and gets into a ready position. With Ranma, Luna, and the rest shouting tips and cheers, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, holds it in for a three count, then slowly exhales. "Alright. Let's get this over with."
An amused grin stretches across the man's face. Getting into a fighting position himself, he says, "Be glad boy! You have the honor of fighting Mel de Alkirk! One of the Four Heroes of the land. And if I'm impressed with you afterwards, I might ask you for yours! Now let's start!"
END OF CHAPTER 6
Author's Notes: For those who actually remembers or reads my stories here's the next chapter. It's pretty short and I decided to keep it that way. By trying to make it long, I end up doing revisions after revisions and then never put anything up. So expect frequent short chapters from now on.
Also, the storyline won't be following the game as closely as the previous chapters. That's because it's been a while since I played the game and it's fuzzy in my head. In a way, this is a good thing because it allows my stories to be more original. I remember someone commenting that I was following the story too closely.
Also, yeah I know. Some of the characters are becoming ooc from whichever storyline you guys are used to. This is in part the effect that Ranma has on those around him, and those around him affecting him.
Give me reviews or whatnot, just make it constructive instead of saying,
"It sucks", "you suck", "I don't like it", "Go die", etc...