OOC: I'm very sorry for being so late with tis chapter, as of now I hav a full time job which is eating up my time so I can't update as often as I have been, rest assured though that I will see this story to the end. now on with the show!

Chapter 11: Sweet Deep Darkness

Now, I know I said the Red Wings had set off to find their new prey, but errrrr... How do I put this... Let's just say saying and doing have a vast gulf of difference between them.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh WHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEE AAAAAAAAAARRRRRREEEEEEEEEE WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Silvie slumped to the growl and howled out in pained frustration at our lack of progress.

I flopped against a mountain wall and leaned my head against it, sighing with the same feelings. "Erghhhhhhhhhh... When I said wwe were gunna teach 'im a lesson I didn; know it wuz us who was gunna be tested first." I then sank to the ground, the kick I got from suddenly feeling all heroic had long since diminished into non-existence due to having run about with absolutly no clue where our prey was. It was as if the trail had been erased the moment he stepped out of Dangruf Wadi and into the mountains.

"Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, we'rrrrre neverrrr gunna find anything at this rrrrrate." Silvie moaned again bitterly, I had to agree, the search was fruitless, there wasn't a single person outside of Dangruf Wadi who had experienced anything unusual or who had caught sight of a Dark Knight. It was utterly insane, where the H could the bastard have gone to? Dark Knight or not he couldn't hav just up and teleported the moment he left Dangruf Wadi, not unless he was allied with a Black Mage, and from the way he'd acted when we first met, I had a good sense that he wasn't the type to readily group with others.

"Didn't he head up to some mountains last time we saw him?" asked Murris out of the blue. Wondering what exactly he was getting at I fired a question back at him.

"What good does that do us? Yeah he went to mountains but those were mountains in South Gustaberg. We're nowhere nea there and he can't be either unless he can fly."

"Well, most thieves tend to dwell in mountains or other rough terrain where attacking them off guard is difficult and laying taps is easy." said Murris.

I lost myself in thought for a minute as I pondered this. If what Murris said was true, then it would make some sense why no one we encountered had anything to say about having met any Dark Knight, and it would help narrow down the search...slightly. "Alright then, we'll go with that, let's go back to Bastok for now and collect our reward, we'll see too if we can find info on the Dark Knight later on. Agreed?"

"Ehhhh, betterrrr then just floating arrrrround rrrrrrandomly and hoping we come acrrrrrross a lead I guess." said Silvie with an exhausted and irritated yawn.

"Right, right, we'll not got anywehrre like this." said Murris.

"Nothing Bet-aru to do." said Curru.

"Ditto." said Lauria. and the three of them got up and together we headed back toward Bastok hopefully we'd find some useful info when we got there.

xex

We arrived back at Bastok sometime near dusk and again, I found myself suprised by how many adventurers were STILL roaming around and doin their adventurin thing. In fact, if I didn't know better I would say there were more out NOW then there had been earilier! Tryng my best to work out this conundrum in my head I lead the group up the presidential office where the director of the mission handed us our reward when we showed him proof of our victories. With our sachels now well stocked with funds we left and headed for the Craftsmens eatery, where we planned to obtain our dinner and discuss our plans for the following day.

We seated ourselves quite confortably in the very table me and Silvie had used only this morning. We were promptly met by a waitress. "Hello may I take your... Oh Lauria! Hey! How ya doin?" No no noooooo! I was starving, I had a stomache that was about to eat itself alive, if I didn't stop this soon the off-handed greeting would lead into a night-long back-and forth assault of meaningless dialouge, FOR THE SAKE OF HUMANITY IT HAD TO BE STOPPED!

"Ohhhhhhhh... huuuuuuuuuungrrrrrrrryyyyyyyy..." I moaned in prolonged fashion, hoping that it would quell the coming tide of talk.

Altana must have been smiling on me, because the waitress suddenly broke off (Lauria gave me a glare) and got back to taking our orders.

"Sorry bout that(I'll talk with ya later Luary) may I take your orders?" I felt a surge of excitement corse through me, I had a starving stomache and a sachel full of enough that I could order whatever I wanted twice over. Oh yeah, I was in it baby.

"I'll have the... theee uhhhhhh..." But whatever it was I thought I was guna order suddenly fazed out of my conciousness, and once again I found myself entering what I now thought of as the Haze World. I still didn't have a damn clue what the H it was, but was pretty sure by this point that since it was so damn insistent on showing itself to me it must be signifigant or important somehow. Or maybe some supernatural grade a hole was just having a go at me I dunno, and you don't either, so rather then pointlessly drawing this out let's just get to what the visions have to show me now shall we?

"You are not fullfilling your full potential, you could have easily slaughtered thoase adventurers, it is for that purpose that I gave you this power." said a tall blurry figure in a black cloak.

"NO! I'm no executioner! I only destroy Beastmen!" said a figure whom I could not make out clearly, though he seemed tall, and had red hair.

"You will do as your told. I gave you that power, and I can just as easily take it away." said the tall blurry figure in the cloak.

The figure with the red hair began to back away slowly, shaking his head. "I I can't- you, you can't believe in this..."

The cloacked figure stepped forward. "What I bileve in is no concern of yours now... wha are you doing? NO! STOP!"

Witthout warning the figure with red hair whos armor I now recognized as that of a Dark Knight let loose a fireball upon something out of my sight whatever it was there was a sudden silence then...

SHhhhhhhhhhwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwOooooAAAAAAAAKABOOOOOOOM

An explosion so massive I thought surely I was dead. Suddenly the red haired fiure was right in front of me, I found myself involuntarily looking up at him.

"Wha?''

"Quiet, We don't have much time, this whole place is going to come down in moments." I heard a chinking sound, and saw that the red haired guy had broken chains that apparently bound me. as explosions rang around the two of us I found myself lifted up off the ground. over the roar of fires and explosions I heard voices shouting. Angry, vengeful, panicked, only the emotions behind them could be heard the flames drowining out the words.

Suddenly I found myself going horizontal and was now seeing both the ceiling and his face. He began to run through the chaos, he flight lost amid the destruction.

"Wha who, where are we going?" I heard myself speak involuntarily.

"Far away from here. They'll come hunting for us!" shouted the red haired guy over the noise.

"Wha, but this place is doomed, how?" again, involuntary words from me.

"There'll be survivors, they'll find another place for a base! Before that happens we need to disappear! Now hold on tight we're goin for a bumpy ride!" and suddenly I found my arm covering my face as the sound of glass shattering filled my awareness, as well as another shhhhwwwwwwoooooosh as the flames found a new router to escape from. we were propelled outward by the force, landing forcefully, on the snowy path of what appeared to be a high up mountain peak, catching a look back, I saw that the place we had come from was carved into the mountain itself, a mountain peak that was currently caving in on itself.

I found myself transfixed by the unreal sight of something so massive collapsing so easily. It was only when the red haired guy started moving again that I found my eyes torn from the sight. "Aghhhhh DAMN! AVALANCHE!" running and sliding, the red haired guy made a desperate bid to outrun the oncming tumult of snow dirt and ruined debris, only just managing to make it to a cliff overhang that we were able to slip under allowing the avalanche to pass us by unharmed... so longas there wasn't enough of it to plow us in.

For a moment we were perfectly still as the tumult of snow and debris mae its calamatous decent from the mountaintop. After an eternity of waiting the snow finally began to slow and at last stop, then. I found myself being set on the hard snowless ground.

"Can you move?" the red haied guy asked.

"I- I think so." I found myself saying while involuntarily getting to my feet.

"Then let's keep moving, we're in no way safe yet, we have to reach a town or someplace at least moderatly civilized, they won't risk pursuit as long as theres the risk of someone discovering them."

"O-okay..."

And as the two of us began to walk I felt a force tug at me as though from another world.

"-lin...Carlin... HEY CARLIN WAKE UP!" I felt a pain in the side of my head, and suddenly the Haze World fazed back into the normal world.

"Erhgh,m ugghhhm wha huh, where? I found myself sitting up in an unfamiliar location.

"We're in my house, you can relax for now, geez you look sick." I heard Laurias voice coming from the side, I looked over toward her, well, I tried to anyway, I suddenly found that I had no energy, I collapsed back onto the bed, hafd I had energy though, I likely would have shouted my guts out, as I had caught my reflection in the mirror, at least, I think it was me, though I don't recall ever having nearly transparent skin, or having quite so many red and blue veins so clearly visible on my face.

"Oh Altana please look out forrrr him..." I heard Silvie speak from somewhere out of sight. Murris was no where to be seen.

"Wow-taru, I've never-ever seeny -weeny these symptom-wymptoms before-taru." I suddenly found my field of vision obsucred by a round blushing face with two tiny eyes. I tried to say something, like, for instance 'get the H offa me, but I couldn't muster the strength, I felt sick to my stomache and couldnt even try to fall asleep. Whatever the H had happenned to me, it wasn't good, when I had the energy, I was gunna have to fess up to these vision things I kept having, before they took my life away with them...

end chptr 11