'Bout time!
Cover Art belongs too: Lutherniel at Deviantart.
If Luthernial complains about the cover art, I will remove it and do so willingly, so death threats and sue will be unnecessary.
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Disclaimer: I do not own Overlord, or any other copyrighted content.
Good day and enjoy this, poorly written, story.
Karluaina stretched her arms as she sat up in her bed. Looking over to her door, she started thinking about what happened yesterday. "Oh yeah, when we were done talking at the bar and about to head to the Adventurer's Guild, the sun had started setting." Karluaina thought as she yawned and stretched again, getting up from her bed, still half asleep, Karluaina dragged her feet to her bedroom door still in her night gown which was gray, loose and obscured her well built body.
Opening the door to her room, she walked down the short hallway and down the stairs. Once down stairs, she saw her modestly sized main floor; over to the left was her kitchen, to the right was the dining table, a vase with roses in it sat on a table clothe. It may not be her old home she lived in before YGGDRASIL shut down, but she still loved it, it was small, and homely.
Comparing it to her old home, which was a nicely sized, two story building, was unfair. But, again, she loves this one more. Real life was a shit hole anyway. Walking down the steps, Karluaina walked to her kitchen intending to cook some breakfast- even though she wasn't a very good cook, she could still cook, it just wouldn't be an explosion of flavor.
As Karluaina was placing her frying pan on the wood stove, she heard shuffling behind her, peering over her shoulder she saw Aratus getting up off her couch and rubbing his eyes. "Oh yeah, forgot I let him crash here." Karluaina thought as she turned back to the wood stove, placing wood logs inside it.
Too lazy to light it properly, she blasted it with a weak fire ball to set the wood on fire and heat the pan on top up.
Looking back to Aratus, she saw him stand from the couch and walk, trudge to be precise, his way to her dining table, minding the chandler in front of him, her ceiling was eight foot high from the floor, allowing Aratus to walk without having to break his neck. Aratus pulls out a chair and sits down while rubbing his face with his left hand, trying to keep himself awake and not to fall asleep.
Aratus isn't wearing his armor, his clothes consist of a loose, dark reddish-brown shirt and loose black trousers, his hair and face free from any dirt, having washed himself down last night.
Karluaina turns back to her heated pan, feeling the heat radiate off it, Karluaina cracks an egg into the pan after applying some butter so the egg wouldn't stick to the iron pan. Karluaina watched the egg she had cracked into the pan, before reaching over for another one.
Aratus was tired even though he had just gotten up. "Two or three days without rest can do that to you..." Aratus pulled his hand from his face and sat up, forcing his eyes to stay open. Hearing sizzling coming from his left, Aratus turned to the noise and saw Karluaina standing over a wood stove, a pan in front of her and a wood spatula in her right hand.
Aratus watched as she reached for a basket of eggs, grabbed an egg, cracked it and dumped the contents into the pan before turning to him. "How ya feeling sleepy head?" Karluaina asked him as though they had known each other for years.
Aratus shook his head, clearing the cobwebs that were forming in his mind from still waking up. "Still half asleep, but alright regardless." Aratus responded tiredly as he watched her turn back to her cooking.
"Well that's good, we all need our sleep, including you." Karluaina spoke over her shoulder without looking back to him. "Anyway, how do you like your egg." She a-
"Over hard." A voice sounded from the back of Aratus' mind, it didn't hurt or anything, it just alarmed him a little. It sounded like him, but at the same time it didn't.
As quick as the voice was there it was gone. Aratus would have kept thinking about it, but Karluaina called his name. "Oh, over hard." Aratus spoke giving the answer that the voice gave him. Karluaina turned back to the pan and Aratus watched as she flipped one of the eggs, the sizzling of the egg got louder as the less cooked side hit the oil from the eggs in the pan.
Aratus watched as Karluaina leaned away from the pan a little to avoid getting burnt by the oil spiting from the pan. Aratus turned away from her and his thoughts turned back to the voice.
It's was odd, it sounded like him, but different; it was clearer, cleaner, when compared to his gravely and rough voice. It also had more emotion to it, like it was happy, but controlled at the same time. "I don't understand," Aratus looked back to Karluaina and shook his head before turning back to the table. "I'll ignore it. For now, at least." Aratus thought, dismissing the voice in the back of his mind. Aratus would have thought of more things if it weren't for the plate of crisp bacon and an over cooked egg placed in front of him by a lightly-tanned, white hand.
"I hope I cooked the bacon right, this time." Karluaina mused as she placed down a steel fork and knife. "I hope you enjoy it, I'm not the best cook but it's not poisoned, if you were wondering." Karluaina stated happily has she walked off to get her serving.
Aratus was a little irritated as he looked at the food. "I could have gotten it myself." Aratus stated too Karluaina has she placed her share of the breakfast on her steel plate, shortly approaching the dining table and sitting down, knife and fork in hand.
"I know, I just wanted to get it for you." Karluaina spoke as she cut some bacon and egg, stacking them together for taste, before stuffing it into her open mouth. Aratus saw no reason not to eat it.
Grabbing the fork and knife, he cut some bacon, before elegantly placing it in his mouth and chewing it thoroughly, muscle memory doing it's work for him.
Closing his eyes, Aratus thought of the taste, even though it never bothered him with how something tastes-he could eat anything he wanted, regardless of it's flavor, it was just how he was.
back to the bacon; it wasn't bland but it wasn't very flavorful either, it was decently cooked; not perfect, but not bad either, somewhere in between. Opening his eyes, Aratus saw Karluaina across from him, staring at him intently and expectantly. "Well? How is it?" She spoke as she watched Aratus swallow his piece of bacon after being chewed into a paste by his sharp teeth.
"It's not perfect," She deflated in front of him like a balloon, "but," She perked back up from hearing him continue, "it's good, some seasoning would do it nicely." Aratus gave his conclusion on her cooking, he watched as she fist pumped giving a silent "yes". Aratus continued eating the bacon as Karluaina went back to her breakfast, using the same method of cutting some bacon, then cutting some egg and stacking them.
The rest of the breakfast went in content silence, by the time Karluaina was done with her plate, Aratus had just gotten to his egg. Karluaina looked towards him and saw him just start to cut his egg for the first time. "Jeez, can you eat any slower?" Aratus looked towards her.
Stopping his cutting motion, he gave her a bland look. "I can." Was his blunt answer to her, it caused a drop of sweat to roll down her head as she stared at the zealous man.
"Okay... Jokes are a bad idea with him..." Karluaina thought as she watched him cut the egg even slower than before. "You know, you don't have to. I was just joking around." Karluaina said as Aratus increased his pace eating a little quicker than when they started.
Karluaina clapped her hands and stood up from her seat, making Aratus look at her as his fork, once again, elegantly placed a bit of fried egg in his mouth. "Whelp! I'm headed up stairs to get suited up for the day, you finish up and get suited up yourself, alright?" Karluaina spoke as she walked over to a basin in the kitchen counter, the basin had water in it. Karluaina lazily dumped her plate in the basin, not bothering to clean it right now.
The sound of wood scraping against wood caught her attention, turning she saw Aratus stand from the table with his plate and utensils in hand. walking over to the water filled basin, ducking under the chandler on his way. Karluaina turned away from him as she walked to and up the stairs and towards her room.
Opening her bedroom door and closing it, she leaned against the door before pushing off it and cheering as quietly as she could, so as to not alert the man down stairs. "Someone actually liked my cooking! Yes!" Karluaina rejoiced in her mind as she threw her arms up. "Now! Let's get suited up!" Karluaina exclaimed as she walked to the armoire where she kept all her normal clothes, quickly pulling the nightgown off her being she threw it at her bed and reached into her soul, metaphorically speaking, she watched as the 'Knight of Redemption's Armor' brightly fazed into existence onto her body.
The only difference now was her head; the helmet to the set was a late 15th century, European 'Armet', the helmet's design was similar to the rest of the armor, with the flowing gold accents and trim, the base color was much like the armor itself, steel white. The main deference between the body armor and the helmet was; the helmet was shinier and cleaner than the armor.
She didn't wear it much obviously, she didn't mind wearing it. It was just annoying to wear a helmet with long hair, however thankfully the helmet had a small slit in the back and bottom of the helm, just between the top plate of the gorget and the base of the helm. Allowing her hair to flow out. So... why doesn't she like wearing it? It gets itchy sometimes, alright! Especially when it gets hot!
After getting comfortable with the true full set on, Karluaina walked towards her bedroom door. Opening it and stepping into the modest hallway, she then proceeded to walk towards and down the stairs.
Completely forgetting to throw her nightgown into the armoire.
When she got to the ground floor she saw Aratus, rolling his shoulders and stretching, getting comfortable in his armor. On the dining table was his helmet. And quite an odd one it was, the metal's color matched the 'Durium's Knight' set, being a steel gray, it also had similar embossing patterns as well. Now, what truly made the helmet odd - to her at least - was the design of the helmet.
It's a 16th century Close Helmet, the helm of it was fluted and at the mid point of the helm it was bolted to the back portion of it with studs, from behind the visor and to the back of the helm, any lower then that would be thick and solid metal protecting the back of his neck from most weapons.
The visor was shaped to slide up the helmet smoothly without grinding on the metal, it dipped downward at the tip of the visor rather than pointing outward. Five, vertical slits allowed him to see through it, the slits closer to the center of the visor were larger, and as they got closer to the hinges they got smaller.
The bevor was attached to the helmet via more studs and a leather strap to help hold it in place more, the neck portion of the bevor was nonexistent, leaving only the thick jaw guard, on each side of the jaw-bevor was two groups of four holes all in a plus sign formation (+), allowing him to breath.
And to hold the helmet on was just a simple, leather, chin-strap.
The Helmet had seen it's fair share of use. Much like the rest of his armor, it had stretches, scars and dents. Overall the helmet looked really cool, but a little weird with it's design.
Aratus looked at the helmet for a moment, before just grabbing and not making a move to equip it. Karluaina opened the visor and cheek guard so she could speak clearly. "Pretty cool helmet you got there, Aratus." Aratus looked toward her and looked her up and down, examining her equipment. "Although," Aratus looked back at her exposed face. "It does look a little weird." Aratus looked at the helmet in his grasp with a twitching eye, before shaking his head.
Aratus looked back at her with his inferno - not literally - like eyes. "So, we're headed to the guild to get myself registered, then we'll go on a 'quest'. Right?" Aratus spoke, all while looking Karluaina in the eye.
"Yep! That's right, so, let's get moving!" Karluaina stated as she walked past Aratus and towards her door, while closing her helmet's visor and cheek guard, pulling it open and walking out into the bright, inviting morn. She heard Aratus close the door behind him as he stepped out.
Karluaina turned to look at him and watched him slip the helmet on and do up the chin strap. Aratus stood up straight, gauntlet clenched and sword on his back, rocking that well-worn set of armor made him look incredible and intimidating, she couldn't help but compliment him. "Damn, Aratus, you look intimidating." She stated as she looked at Aratus. Not waiting for a reply, Karluaina pivoted on her booted heel and walked towards the Adventruer's Guild to get Aratus signed up.
As they we're walking towards the Adventurer's Guild to sign Aratus up, Aratus was trying to get use to wearing the helmet, it limited his field of view and it constantly shifted around slightly, making him shift it back into place. Aratus was constantly shifting his helmet, trying, and failing, to get comfortable with it on. "I hate this helmet." Aratus said under his breath as he fallowed Karluaina to the Guild.
Thankfully, the streets were quite empty in the morning, a few people here and there, but overall; quite empty. And due to both of them wielding weapons and being in full suits of armor made the citizens avoid them.
Karluaina looked like your typical knight-in-shining-armor, where as Aratus looked like your typical evil-warmongering-warlord. The odd pair surely turned a few eyes their way.
As they were walking, the Adventurer's Guild came into view. When they reached the double doors, Aratus could her the sounds of a lot of other Adventurers inside. Karluaina must of heard the voices as well, seeing how she stopped and stepped off to the side getting the right door, knowing exactly what she wanted to do, and deciding to humor her, Aratus walked over to the left and grabbed the handle, best too learn to work together rather than later in the heat of battle.
Karluain brought up her left hand and counted down with her fingers.
One.
Two.
Three.
Karluaina and Aratus opened the doors at the same time, and quite loudly at that, the inside of the guild went quiet as most of, if not, the entire guild looked towards them.
Aratus could hear most of them whispering to each other, he was able to pick out a few of them too. "Hey who's that guy, haven't seen him before." "Holy shit! He's bloody tall!" "Oh, great. It's her again." That last one caught his attention, Aratus' head snapped towards the woman that spoke of his good-hearted acquaintance with resentment.
Aratus saw a group of three, one woman and two men. Until we get a name, let's just call her Resentment. The woman, Resentment, was a warrior, obviously, as if the Zweihänder on her back wasn't enough indication.
One of the two men was a War-mage, judging by his lightly, plated, leather armor and flail. Judge seems fitting for him.
The last one was a Ranger, or an Archer. Aratus was leaning toward Ranger, because of the longsword on his back and leather armor. "I'm feeling lazy, I'll just call him Ranger." Aratus thought as he stared at them as he and Karluaina walked in and mostly everyone went back to what they were doing, but a few continued to look at them, and by them, I mean Aratus.
Ranger leaned towards Resentment, and spoke to her. "Hey, the big guys staring at us." Ranger spoke with a hushed voice, but it was worthless, Aratus could hear him as if they were yelling in Aratus' ear.
Resentment looked at Aratus' eyes, or at least, she tried to because of his helmet blocking her view. "Who's he? never seen him before. But, if he's fallowing that bitch, then he's our enemy." She spoke with absolute venom as she leered in their direction.
A sudden, unholy rage flooded into Aratus' mind at an alarming rate, his left hand balled painfully into a fist, Aratus heard the leather stress against his hand. He doesn't know what he would have done if a sudden calm hadn't hit him.
With a more calm and controlled mind, Aratus took what Resentment had said as a challenge. Focusing a little magic into his eyes in just the right way, made them glow like a fire.
The sudden glow made Resentment lean backwards slightly, now knowing that he was defiantly looking at her, but with a, literal, raging inferno. "Okay, he's defiantly looking at us." Ranger said, Aratus saw that Resentment was making to stand.
However Judge's hand on her shoulder stopped her. "It would be best, if we did nothing. At least, not right now." Judge spoke as he looked at Aratus was a calculating gaze.
Aratus bumped into something hard as he was walking, snapping his head away from the group to see what blocked his path, he soon realized he was the receptionist's desk, making him cut the magic flow from his eyes. "Heh, you should watch where you're walking, Aratus." Karluaina spoke with a chuckle as she walked, Aratus had walked thighs first into the desk.
The receptionist cleared her throat to get their attention, she was a petite black woman with sliver eyes, a smooth and full face with brown hair tied in a lazy, and very messy bun.
Hidden behind his visor, Aratus' left eyebrow shot up at her appearance. "Good morning, Karla, dear, who's your quite tall friend, if you don't mind introducing me." She spoke using Karluaina's nick name, Karla, showing that she knew Karluaina, all while examining Aratus with a keen eye. She also has a rather peculiar accent, like that one person that loves being rich [1].
"Oh, his name's Aratus!" Karluaina stated as she looked at the receptionist through her visor, while bashing the back of her fist into Aratus' chest, making him flinch a little, she's strong. Very strong. Good, Aratus refuses to work with a weakling. "Aratus, this is Grace, the receptionist!" Karluaina introduced him to her.
Grace nodded slightly as a greeting, Aratus stood unmoving like a titan of stone.
"It is absolutly smashing too meet you, Mr. Aratus" Grace spoke as she reached behind the bar like desk, Aratus watched as she pulled out a drawer and pulled out a sheet and placed it on the counter, sliding it towards his thighs for him to grab it.
Aratus reached for the sheet of paper and the quill to sign himself in, he looked back at Grace. "Likewise, Ms. Grace." Aratus spoke, deciding that being at least a little bit polite wouldn't hurt him, at least, he hoped it wouldn't.
Leaning down slightly, Aratus started to write on the sheet's blank spots. As he was writing, he couldn't help but listen to Karluaina and Grace's conversation. "Karla, dear, Have you reconsidered taking the test?" Grace spoke on a leveled tone, under that tone was a bit of hope leaking though, how odd.
"Grace, you know my answer." Karluaina started before quickly clearing her throat. "I will not take the guild's test to increase my rank until I've completed a set number of quests." Karluaina spoke- no, it was more like she recited it. She's spoken that more then once.
"Oh, dear, I was hoping that today, you would have changed your mind..." Grace sounded as though she had just witnessed something quite stupid. Aratus had definitely heard something stupid.
Aratus stood up straight, back to his full titanic height, and pushed the sheet toward Grace with the quill on top of the paper. "Oh, thank you, Aratus, and here's your rank plate." Grace spoke as she pushed a copper plate toward him, which he tied, not around his neck, but to the ring that held his crimson red, tattered shawl together over his shoulders.
Afterward, Grace quickly looked at Karluaina before motioning with her right index finger for him to come closer. Aratus obliged, leaning towards the small, black woman.
Grace spoke in a hushed voice so others wouldn't be able to hear her. "If you're going to form a party with Karla, could you please drill some sense into her." Grace quickly looked back at Karluaina, before looking back at Aratus with a determined expression. "She's already done twenty four quests, and of various difficulties, which is more than enough to go from copper to silver. Can you, maybe, change her mind?" Grace explained while also asking him to do something.
Aratus quickly rolled it around his head, lifting his right hand in a fist, he placed it against where his mouth would be and used his left forearm to hold his right in place. "If she doesn't advance from copper to a higher rank, than we won't be able to take on more advanced quests and acquire larger pay. How stupid of her not advancing, no wonder she's having financial problems." Aratus dropped his stance and nodded at Grace, confirming that he would try.
Grace, intern, smiled at him and gave a quick nod of thanks, it was at this moment that Karluaina turned back to them. "All done? Good let's get ourselves a quest." Karluaina walked over to the quest board, after examining the board for a little, she grabbed a copper rank quest to clear a mining cave of Goblins. "This will be a cake walk for us." Karluaina said as she handed the quest to Aratus.
Aratus looked the sheet over. The reward for completely clearing the Goblin nest was; twenty four copper pieces and two silver. There's also directions on the paper, Aratus nodded his head before looking towards Karluaina, who was inspecting her sword while sitting at a table close to the receptionist desk.
Karluaina looked towards Aratus as he walked over to her, quest sheet in hand. "You got a map?" Aratus questioned, his eyes staring straight at Karluaina through his helmet.
Karluaina slipped the sword back into it's scabbard on her back. "Yep, right here." Karluaina reached around her back and into her hard leather, box like satchel and fished out a worn, paper map and handed to him.
Aratus grabbed the map from her hand, he set the quest sheet on the table and checked the village's name on the quest sheet. The Village of Geldin; a remote village that was at least two to three days from E-Rantel, a remote, worthless village out in the middle of whoop-whoop[2].
How annoying. At least, it was to Aratus.
After Aratus was done going over the quest sheet, he started folding it, His gauntlets-somehow-not getting in his way.
The sound of the paper being folded caught Karluaina's attention. "Ready?" Aratus gave her a nod. "Right, let's roll out!" She cheered as she stood and walked towards the exit, easily getting ahead of Aratus with quick steps.
Aratus quickly caught up to her with long strides.
"I should ask her about those three adventurers." Aratus thought as they quickly reached the doors to the Guild.
Karluina grabbed both door knobs and quickly opened the doors, stepping out just as quickly. The doors were quickly swinging back to shut, but were stopped as Aratus' left foot got caught between them when he reached the doors, ducking down slightly to fit through the door frame as he pushed the doors open with his left arm.
When Aratus walked out of the building, Karluaina was standing there waiting. "Alright," She started, pointing her left index finger up to the sky. "We got everything for the long walk to Geldin?" She question as the doors to the Adventurer's Guild slammed shut behind Aratus.
Aratus couldn't help but pick at her chose of words. "Neither of us has a pack or bag to carry anything." Aratus thought as he walked from the door to her. "Unless you've got something I can't see, no." Was his flat gravely response as he stepped up to stand in front of her, the height difference between the two was very noticeable.
Karluaina turned on her heel and realized how stupid her question was. "Okay, stupid question..." Karluaina rubbed the back of her helmet, running her gauntlet fingers through her hair in the process, and starting thinking. "It's to long to and from the house from here, just buy a couple bags and supplies as we head to the gate." Karluaina said as she reached into the coin purse on her waist. "Oh, yeah... no money... Damn..." Karluaina cursed as she reached for the hard leather bag on her waist and pulled out an YGGDRASIL coin and started staring at it meticulously. "It's a bad idea to use YGGDRASIL coins, so we'll just have to make do..." She said with down trodden expression.
Completely ignoring her, Aratus starting walking back to the house, Aratus didn't need to look at her too know she turned to the sound of him walking away, with those steel greaves of his, how couldn't you?
Aratus ignored the sound of her following him, he was just going to get a bag. What was she following him?
The answer slapped him in the face, their in a party. Gotta stick together.
Thankfully the streets were sparse and had little people walking around. The few that were out were avoiding Aratus like the plague. Aratus noticed Karluaina jogging beside him, his eyebrow shot up in his helmet and looked down at his feet. He was walking alright, so why was she jogging?
This was going to make him sound stupid. "Why are you jogging." Was his flat and gravely question, he was already feeling stupid for asking, the answer was obvious- why ask?
"Have you looked at how tall you are." Was her equally flat response, yep feeling like an idiot.
Aratus shook his head and looked forward, the house was in view, just a little more.
And there, their both now in front of the house they left an roughly forty minutes ago. Aratus turned towards Karluaina. "Go and grab two bags come back, we'll fish in a near by river on the way if you get hungry." Plan made, Aratus stepped to the side so Karluaina could enter her own house.
Karluaina looked at him for a moment, before shrugging, pulling her key out and entering inside to get some bags.
She came back out a minute later, a large knapsack tha was just to big for her and a smaller one that was fitted over his shoulders. She pushed the larger one towards Aratus, who grabbed it and threw it over his shoulder and neck. "Alright, let's go." Karluaina said, beginning to walk away as well.
Another fifteen minute walk and they were exiting the front gate of the Fortress to follow the road to Geldin Village too handle these ugly vermin.
Aratus's heart thumped strongly at the idea of slaughtering something so distastfull.
This took longer than it should have.
[1] Talking like a person that loves being rich: Grace has a noble voice with a thick British accent.
[2] Village out in the middle of whoop-whoop: 'Whoop-whoop' is Aussie slang for: Out in the middle of nowhere.
Next Chapter: Aratus' special sword was cutting through the cave walls and the goblins with no effort.