BANISHED, WHERE TO?
"Urgh, what happened…" Aran felt a slight disgust in his stomach, and his head was still dizzily spinning. Something stung badly. When he felt more conscious, he realised he was lying on a rather soft, pelt-like ground. He could smell the fresh earth in the air. Slowly but eventually, Aran could feel his arms again. As he tried to move them, his arms came across what felt like several stalks of grass, and rustling sounds could be heard. He slowly opened his eyes, but quickly shut it again due to the bright light.
His eyes gradually got used to the light and he made a second attempt. He managed to sit up and looked around. Clear rainforest. Trees around him told him that he's possibly in the middle of nowhere. It seemed like he was back in Ellinia. Or was it Leafre?
Then he remembered. The chaos during their fight with the Black Mage. All the spectres, skeletons, wyverns and monks he had fought. How they were all so close to eliminating their one common enemy. That moment when he felt a stinging headache and all went black. The only thing he wanted to know then was what had happened when he was unconscious, where he was now, and where the others were. As far as his memory allowed, he recalled quite a few others being brought under the Black Mage's spell besides him. At least it was a relief that his memory was not completely wiped out like previously.
He looked around and tried to find his pole arm. It was just by his side, albeit looking blunt. Maha must have been inside blaming him again. He tried to commune with his pole arm with hopes of finding him, but to no avail. He hadn't followed Aranelle instead, had he? he thought.
He tried to lift his pole arm. Strange, his pole arm seemed to feel ten times heavier. Perhaps he was still feeling weak, he thought.
"Hello? Anybody there?" a voice bellowed in a distance. Aran recognised this voice.
"Aranelle?" Aran yelled.
He quickly stood up and tried to get to her. The pole arm was weighing him down, though, and he couldn't help walking a tad too slow. He tried to dash forward a small distance as he used to back then, probably that would have shortened the time, but for some reason his body refused to cooperate.
"Aran, where are you?" he heard Aranelle calling out. Without hesitating any longer, he carried his pole arm on his shoulders and moved towards the direction of the voice. The atmosphere around him was eerily silent except for his footsteps which made the ground rustle.
"Coming, Aranelle!" Aran shouted as he moved on. He was starting to wear out with the heavy pole arm on him. Nevertheless, he continued heading for Aranelle. Suddenly, Aran bumped into something ahead of him and he collapsed. His pole arm slopped from his back and landed with a thump.
Or was it someone? "Ow…" a voice sounded ahead, but it was not Aranelle.
"Mercedes?" asked Aran as he looked up in front, bewildered. Indeed, in front of him was a beautiful girl with pointy ears and long hair, hands caressing her head. Her bowguns sat at both her sides.
"Aran, you're here too?" Mercedes looked stunned as she set her eyes on Aran. "Where are we? Where're the others?"
"No idea," replied Aran. "Aranelle should be somewhere nearby, though."
Just then, they heard leaves rustling behind Mercedes. Not long after, a girl with white hair and long pony tail appeared. When she saw Aran, she dropped her pole arm, ran towards him and threw her arms around his neck.
"Araaaaaaaaaaaannn!" said Aranelle, excitedly.
"Hack…cough…wheeze…I…can't…breathe…"Aran choked.
"Sorry!" Aranelle said as she released her death grip. "You had me worried so much, I thought I'm gonna lose you! Oh, you're here too Dee," she said as she saw Mercedes, to which she replied, "Stop calling me Dee, gee*z!"
"Aranelle, is Maha with you? I couldn't reach him so I thought he's with you," asked Aran.
"I couldn't reach him either," said Aranelle, leaving Aran all the more confused.
"That's not the problem now, guys!" said Mercedes, feeling impatient, "We're in the middle of nowhere! We have to find the others too!"
At that moment, Aran and Aranelle became aware of their surroundings again. A seemingly endless rainforest stood around them, with sunlight illuminating through the leaves.
"Help!" another voice broke the silence.
"Someone's in trouble!" said Aran as he picked up his pole arm and headed off towards the voice. The others retrieved their own weapons and followed. As they went, they could hear the sound of gushing water, louder the more they went. Eventually, they arrived at what seemed like a stream near a waterfall, so high that none of these they knew had such great heights.
Aside, they saw someone struggling on the surface of the stream as though close to drowning. Nearby, another swam towards her, albeit greatly slowed by the somewhat strong current. Eventually, the swimmer grabbed the drowning person by the waist and swam to Aran's direction ashore. Without hesitating, they put down their weapons and went for the side of the stream as both of them reached the shore and helped them up as they slowly crawled.
"I got you, Empress," said the swimmer as both got up.
"Kyrin, Empress, are you okay?" Mercedes asked.
"Never better," Kyrin replied, a smile on her face. Cygnus, however, was too exhausted to reply, and could hardly do anything other than panting hard.
"What happened?" asked Aranelle.
"Empress fell into the water just now. I was just walking by when I heard her," Kyrin answered. "Been long since I last met with such strong currents. Feels good to swim against it!"
"Thanks, Kyrin, and please, just call me Cygnus," Cygnus managed to speak up.
"By the way, since you guys are here too, any idea where we are?" asked Kyrin.
"If only we know," Aranelle answered cynically.
Kyrin stood up and looked around. "If there's a stream here, we'd reach civilisation if we walk along it."
"That's what I was trying to do," said Cygnus.
The five of them wasted no time. After picking up their own weapons, they headed away from the waterfall.
"Are we still in the Maple World? For some reason I can't use my magic here," Cygnus asked.
"We don't know, Cygnus. We have to find the locals to find it out," said Aran.
They silently walked on. The way was almost clear, without any beasts that normally lurked in the jungle, but the temperature was unusually hot. They had lots of rests mainly due to Aran and Aranelle's abnormally heavy pole arms. Cygnus took off her adornments and bracelets which held her outer gown to feel more comfortable. She wrapped them together within the gown and held onto them instead. They quenched their thirsts with the flowing water and eased their hunger with wild fruits and berries. They did chat, but there wasn't much to chat about other than their last battle and the abnormality of their surroundings.
The stream enlarged into a river as they went on, yet the rainforest did not seem to end. The river, however, cleared the sky of trees and leaves. Suddenly, they spotted smoke rising to the air in front of them. A hint of smell of burnt wood further caught their attention, and they quickened their paces with hopes to find any signs of intelligent being.
They walked on to find that the smoke - and the smell - came from a bonfire. Either that, or someone was burning old branches and dried leaves. There was an old man standing beside the fire, one hand holding a wooden stick. Aran put down his pole arm and went to approach him.
"Excuse me," Aran said to the old man.
The old man did not react. Instead, he turned away, called out something he couldn't understand, and turned back to the burning wood. A few moments later, a younger man appeared. He came to Aran as soon as he saw them.
"How can I help you?" asked the young man.
"May I know where we are? My friends and I got lost in the woods so we followed the river to see where it leads to."
The young man looked around him and said, "We are at Gopeng now. This river is Sungai Kampar. Only my father" he pointed to the old man, "lives here. Where are you guys from?"
Aran had no idea of the land they were at and felt best not to leak out too much information in such an unfamiliar place. He tried to change the topic. "It's not important. We were actually lost for days in there so perhaps we need some time to familiarise, then we can return to our places."
The young man spoke to the old man again. The old man nodded and smiled, seeming to give his approval. The young man turned back towards Aran and said, "You can stay here if you want. I would prepare you and your friends for the night. Father said he could always use some company."
The five of them followed the young man inland, chatting as they did. After ten minutes of walking, they came to a wooden house almost the size of four mushroom houses of Henesys, old but still sturdy.
"Pardon this place," said the young man as they stepped in the house, "it's a little old and messy but this is all we got. Father built this house before I was even born."
He showed them around, pointing the bathroom, living room, kitchen and bedrooms out. At last, he led them to an empty bedroom, seemingly the biggest in the house. "It's alright, my father and I could sleep in the other one," the young man said.
He left the bedroom to them, but before he took the third step, he turned back.
"You're…I'm sorry I didn't know your names," said the young man.
Aran turned to look at the girls. When Cygnus gave a slight nod and smile, Aran turned to the young man and said, "I'm Aran, and this is…" he introduced him to them one by one.
"I'm Soro, nice meeting you guys," he shook Aran's hand. "You can stay here as long as you want, but just don't bring down the house. By the way, I will be headed back to KL soon so if you guys wanna come with me back to my house instead let me know. And if you guys need some clothes you could borrow some of mine or my father's, I'm sure they'll fit your sizes."
Soro left, leaving the five of them in the bedroom to sort themselves out.
Aranelle suddenly frowned. Mercedes turned to look at her. "What's wrong?" she asked.
"There's something strange about him. He seems a little too excited," replied Aranelle.
"He knew, and he didn't even question our lack of backpacks," said Kyrin.
"Or our weapons, or outfits," said Aran.
"You guys able to use your powers?" asked Cygnus.
The rest tried a simple buff each, but for some reason nothing happened at all. "Nah," they all replied.
"Strange…was it the void, or was it this world that made us lose our powers?" asked Cygnus again.
Mercedes looked out of the windowsill, trying to study the environment. "We are in Malaysia," she finally concluded.
"What?" the rest replied, shocked.
"How do you know?" asked Aran.
"There's only one place with forest and yet the weather's still this hot," Aranelle answered, trying to fan herself with her palm.
"It could be so, but it's definitely not the Malaysia we know of," said Mercedes, referring to the metropolis, muddy villages and the theme park filled with insane mascots.
As Soro walked out of the house, he thought he struck gold. At first, he thought that they were pro cosplayers and almost shook it off, but further thoughts led him to suspect that they might actually be the real deal.
In that sense, their names were strange and perfectly matched too. But of course, anyone playing MapleStory knew about them all too well.