"Yeah, baby, yeah!" As usual, Elga was beating everything in her path into a pulp. During this particular battle, her prime target was the Orc King. His blood splattered everywhere as Elga incessantly prodded his legs with the tip of her spear. She howled with pleasure as the great creature accidentally hit himself with his own iron mace.
Anne thrust her sword into one of the King's Orc attendants. The beast staggered, grunted, and fell, hitting the ground in a foul cloud of dust and blood. "Elga," yelled the Clavat, "be careful!" "What's 'careful'?" the Lilty hollered back in a mocking tone.
Just when Elga tossed back her head to laugh at the pitiful blood-stained behemoth that was once the Orc King, a huge gnarled fist plummeted down at her. Elga yelped and caught the fist, pushing up on it for all she was worth, trying to keep it from crushing her. It was now Caliphen's time to shine.
He mumbled secret spells into the dank air and heaved his Rune Hammer upward. He pointed the weapon at the King's fist, channeling the spell up from his body and towards its target. With his blizzard ring glinting like mythril on his finger, he half-chanted, half-shouted, "Blizzara!"
Spikes of crystalline ice jabbed up from a gentle blue light that had appeared on the Orc King's hand. They punctured his flesh with the full force of frosty syringes. The immense monster drew his arm back quickly, and Elga was free to dart to Ter Van, who rejuvenated her with a Cure spell.
Many more attacks were executed. At last, the exhausted Orc King drew himself in tightly and began to glow a full-moon golden. The gold aura began to turn violet-red. Anne recognized the attack almost instantly. She called everyone in to attack the King before he could execute his most famous attack: self-destruct.
Blood and dirt flew everywhere. Beads of sweat began to appear on the brows of all four fighters. They needed to work hard now; if the Orc King were to self-destruct, they would all be seriously wounded, if not killed. The Tipa-landers threw their bodies, their souls, their fighting spirits into their weapons, attacking for all they were worth.
Just as the aura around the King had begun to turn the purple-red of a dying rose, the four friends cried out and struck the fiend simultaneously. The aura seeped away. The body of the Orc King, lifeless as a great boulder, swayed and fell down into the grainy soil. When the dust cleared, the caravanners made sure nobody had been seriously hurt. The only one who seemed to be suffering any damage at all was Anne, who had a great bloody gash across her face that stretched from her cheekbone to her chin.
"You guys go ahead," said Ter Van, gesturing to the myrrh chamber. "I'll handle this. I have some Cure Magicite with me." Elga and Caliphen trotted off, neither one with enough energy to argue.
Ter Van knelt beside Anne, who had fallen to her knees. He held the Magicite in one hand and touched Anne's cheek with the other. The feel of Anne's smooth skin under his chapped hands gave Ter Van funny chills up and down his neck. He looked at Anne's face and, for the first time in all the years traveling with her, realized she was…pretty.
Concentrate. Don't daydream about… The thought came involuntarily and brought a cold flush to Ter Van's skin. He could feel his own hands getting clammy against Anne's cheek. No, he told himself firmly. You have no feelings for this girl. Don't get distracted. "Cure," he murmured, and platinum sparks glittered their way into Anne's wound, sealing it completely.
Anne looked at Ter Van from under thick, lovely eyelashes. "Thank you," she whispered, making Ter Van freeze up. "Uh," he stammered, "no…problem." A little black demon of doubt flapped its wings in the back of Ter Van's mind. Eyelashes, pretty hair, nice skin. Your precious Yuke has none of these.
Helpless against his own mind, Ter Van wrestled with his problems as he followed Anne into the myrrh chamber.
The drop of myrrh had already fallen when Ter Van arrived at the scene. The Chalice, now two-thirds full, glittered smugly under the fading light of the myrrh tree. Ter Van watched it sparkle with a trance-like devotion until a familiar voice shattered his thoughts.
"Kupo? Why are you so late, kupo? Not much of a caravan." The rude little Mailmoogle stood tapping its foot on the ground. It jerked up into the air and floated like a soap bubble over to Ter Van, dropping a letter smartly into his hand. Ter Van's stomach seemed to drop into itself as he felt the rose seal under his fingers. Silently, he opened the letter.
My dear Ter Van,
How are you doing? I hope everyone is safe and sound. Please come home soon; I miss you, and I have also run into a small dilemma.
When I told my mother that I wished to strike out on my own, she laughed at me and said that I could not. I asked her why, and she continued to say that she had already made plans for me to be wed to a tailor's son in Shella. It is not exactly a betrothal, so there are still loopholes in the arrangement. The wedding, if the plans are unhindered, will take place in a month.
I love you, Ter Van.
Pain muffled Ter Van's senses. It wasn't exactly pain in the physical sense; it was just a great burden of terrible fear and loathing that boiled up like poison. Ter Van's mind reeled, and his stomach hurt. One looming thought overpowered all else:
Why did this have to happen to me?
He fumbled for a pen and some parchment. His spirit was so overwhelmed with emotion, it felt like it was on fire. The pen shook in his hand as he wrote:
Sweet Ralthia,
Everyone here is fine, but it definitely seems like you're not. I'll come home and save you, Rallie, before a month is up. I promise.
Yours, Ter Van.
As he sealed the letter and handed it to the waiting Mailmoogle, a distant thought flicked through his mind. I never said I loved her back. But…do I really…?
----------
Night swept over the countryside, its great raven wings spanning from horizon to horizon. The sky was remarkably clear. The stars shone so boldly and were so great in number, they looked like a silver embroidery stitched across a black blanket. Way off in the distance, in a void of indeterminable space, seraphim threads of lightning cast themselves down into the shadowy earth.
The party's next destination was discussed over a dinner of jerky and bunches of rainbow grapes. Elga chomped off a large chunk of dried meat and announced, "I have this all figured out." Everyone looked at her incredulously. "You…do?"
"Yep." She turned to Ter Van. "Say there, Wolfie boy, how much gil did we get from the monsters back in the Mine?" Ter Van shook his head. "I…don't know exactly. It's hard to say. Maybe…five hundred?"
Elga clasped her hands behind her back and began to pace excitedly. "Exactly. So, we got cash now, right? Money can buy a lot of things. Yes indeed. Quite a lot of things…"
"What are you trying to say?" Caliphen cut in skeptically. Elga glared daggers at him. "I'm getting to it, okay?
"Okay, so, like I said, money can buy a lot of things. One of those things is travel. I know for a fact that Tristan the ferryman charges fifty gil a head to go to the Plains of Fum. How many of us are there? Four. How much gil is that? Four times fifty is two hundred. We have more than that. Does anyone see where I'm going here?"
Without actually giving anyone any time to answer, Elga kept talking. "Yes, I'm talking about Daemon's Court. What a wonderful place that is…"
"You are quite determined to go there," Caliphen observed. Elga glared at him again, pouting. "Would you stop interrupting me?" Caliphen only chucked in response.
"So, like I was saying, Daemon's Court is a great place. Tons of monsters, heaps of treasure, and the Fields of Fum are nearby in case we need anything." She looked hopefully at her audience. "So, what do you say?"
Ter Van smiled. "Well, after a sales job like that, I whole-heartedly agree." Anne laughed. "You're something, you know that, Elga?" she said, grinning. "Of course I'll go." Caliphen sighed heavily. "I guess I'm going too, then…"
Elga crossed her arms and smiled broadly. "It's settled, then. Tomorrow at first light we'll go to Tristan's ferry."
Everyone's mood had been lightened by Elga's little escapade. Everyone's, that is, except Ter Van's. While everyone else slept, he curled up in his bedroll, plagued by uneasy thoughts. Ter Van, he told himself, nothing is going to change unless you just go to sleep and see what tomorrow brings. Looking one last time up at the diamond-velvet sky, he closed his eyes and fell into a thin, restless sleep.