{Ye Olde Lengthy Author's Note: Sorry it's been so long since the last update. n.n() It's been hard to find time to sit down and get these prepped for FF.Net, and I've been writing all the while…to save reading time for people, work for me, and prevent myself from posting a whole ton of stuff that isn't going to go over well, I'm going to post chapters in short bursts (say, 3 at a time) even though I'm up to…I think chap. 12 is in the works now. Thanks to all the people who encouraged and, even better, offered constructive criticism. 'The Shadows', your review was duly noted during my work, and I hope the chapters that follow will help a little in fleshing out what I failed to before now. If they don't, then please don't hesitate to tell me so as before. Any suggestions and advice that will help me improve my writing are welcome—aside from the fun, practice and improvement is half the reason I do fanfiction. Additionally, I would like it to be known that chapters 7 and 8 are…well, frankly, I'm none too pleased with how they turned out, before anyone else can tell me so. But no matter how I tried to work it I couldn't think of how else to do them without harming the story continuity as a whole. If I ever come up with a way that will remain in keeping with the plot, you will likely see those two chapters replaced. As it is, if they seem…sub-par compared to the rest, please take it with a grain of salt, and here's hoping the ones that follow will make up for the lapse. In keeping with that, I'm going to post four chapters this time, as not to end on what I perceive to be a "bad note". Thanks again for all the support n.n Please, enjoy the show.}
Chapter Six
Obscurity was not a particularly prosperous town, being far away from any noteworthy trading routes, fishing locales, mines, hunting-grounds or flashy hot spring resorts. Even bandits avoided the town like the plague, afraid that the nature of its name would affect their reputations as well. Thus it was with little regret that Aric and Ellisia passed the sign on the city limits which read "Welcome to Obscurity. Population: Dwindling".
Ell had resolutely refused to drop the money for horses, which Aric felt to be pure folly considering the need for haste, but thankfully Atlass City wasn't too far away--in fact, it was just close enough to totally obscure Obscurity, perhaps contributing to the town's lackluster name and lack of appearance on even maps produced by its own cartographers.
"I still don't like this," Aric muttered under his breath, crumpling the note up after reading it one last time and tossing it over his shoulder, sniping it out of the air with a tiny burst of fire magic. "We could be walking right into a trap."
"Please, Aric," Ellisia said, slowly shaking her head and waving over her shoulder as though to dispel his concerns like smoke. "We know where all three Artifacts are going to be now. What could possibly go wrong?"
"So...tell me exactly why we're all here, again?" Gourry Gabriev was, as ever, the one to invite convenient plot exposition.
Lina sighed, clenching her fists, resisting mightily through superhuman effort of will the urge to smack him silly with a slipper. While she took a deep breath and counted backward from ten, resident level-headed, cool-tempered chick-magnet (for, after all, what young lass could resist the lure of rocky blue-gray skin and hair that could be used to pin up posters?) Zelgadis Graywords took it upon himself to fill in the blanks...again.
"All right," he said, slowly crossing his arms as he leaned against the wall next to the inn-room's closet door. "From the top. As far as we know, someone has unearthed a set of magical artifacts that bestow incredible power to anyone who gains possession of all three."
"We have to collect 'em before they're all snatched up by some greedy psychopathic villain!" Amelia piped in, raising her hand and bouncing in her chair like an eager Sorcerer's Guild student.
Zel paused a moment to make certain she was done before continuing. "And while we're gathering them up anyway, Lina is going to allow me to try and use them to change my body back to normal." Quite pointedly, he peered at the diminutive, red-headed sorceress from the corner of his eye. "Isn't that right?"
"Yeah, yeah, sure thing, Zel," Lina tossed offhandedly, folding her hands behind her head and not bothering to stifle a yawn. The chimera continued regardless.
"Of course, this is all due to a very questionable source of information."
"Xellos has never completely screwed us over, Zel," Lina protested, frowning, suddenly part of the conversation proper. "And his information is usually good."
"But most of that good goes to him. Regardless…" Lifting his gaze from the floorboards, he frowned slightly. "Of course, the most he would tell us was that all three of the Artifacts would be moving here into Atlass City sometime within the week. Naturally everything else--such as, for instance, names or descriptions of these people carrying them--is all a big secret. You following any of this, Gourry?"
The swordsman lifted a hand to his chin, settling his elbow onto the other palm, and sat in deep, contemplative thought. Then, he nodded sharply with a bright, broad grin. "Nope."
"Terrific, Gourry. Glad to see you are still nothing if not consistent."
"'What could possibly go wrong?'" Aric mimicked, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms, defying Ellisia to argue him. "Try a militia blockade, goldenrod. This'll take hours to get through. Hours we don't have, by the way; we wasted enough walking here."
Ellisia sighed, clenching her fists, resisted mightily through a superhuman will the urge to whack him silly with her hammer. As she took a deep breath and slowly counted backward from ten, Aric turned to look at the sturdy city walls, lined with archers and sorcerers just itching for an excuse to snipe something out of the air…and at the battalion standing to either side of the fortified gates. …this was going to take some doing.
"I don't understand what they could be doing here, anyway," Ell mused once she had gotten her temper under control, rubbing her chin in thought. "No wars going on in this region that I'm aware of--and I'd think we'd have noticed by now."
"They're searching people, too," Aric pointed out, gesturing to the none-too-tidy ransacking of a passing hay-wagon. "So much for that old trick."
"Unless..." Ellisia murmured thoughtfully, tapping her lower lip with a finger.
Aric suddenly had a sinking feeling.
"This is never going to work," Aric protested yet again, pulling the recently acquired broad-brimmed hat down over his rather distinctive eyes, though the action was mostly to hide his embarrassment as best he could. This hair-brained scheme was like something Emilio would have come up with.
It wasn't so much that he objected to the ethics of Ellisia's tactics, "persuading" a passing hay-merchant on the road to let them "borrow" his cart. Even great adventurers sometimes had to resort to petty thievery from time to time--that didn't put them in the same lot as bandits.
Rather, it was simply the sheer absurdity of the supposed "disguises". A wide-brimmed and ludicrously plumed brown hat for him, along with a heavy leather mantle over his usual white cloak to match it; and for Ellisia, a similar leather mantle over her cape with a hood specially designed for maximum "shady features" effect. They couldn't look more suspicious if they'd painted the words "Heavily Armed Foreign Spies" on the side of the wagon in bright, vibrant colors.
"Tell me again just exactly how this is supposed to get us through faster?" he asked, frowning skeptically as he leaned toward her to speak in hushed tones.
She whispered the plan back at him again. It sounded even less likely to succeed the second time, but he knew better than to argue by this point and instead resolved himself to probably blasting their way through and bringing the whole city militia down on their heads.
And as they rolled up to the checkpoint in the gateway, Ellisia wasted no time. As soon as the words "State your business" were out of the gruff head guardsman's mouth, she tottered woozily, then wobbled right down off her perch--and not into a waiting guardsman's arms, as initially planned, which meant crashing face-down right into the cold, unforgiving cobblestones.
"What's the matter with you?!" Aric snapped at the guardsman, trying to use this new angle without breaking character and simultaneously cutting off Ellisia's similar remark that would have given the ruse away. "Don't you know you're supposed to catch a fainting girl?!" The man hastened to scoop up the fallen Ell, and Aric hastily lifted a hand to cover her mouth and stifle her protests. "Now quickly, give her here so I can get her to a White Sorcerer!" He tried to tug her out of the larger man's arms, but the guardsman didn't release her.
"Now, now, son, calm down," the broad-shouldered, bristly-black-bearded man placated, "We know the city quite well and we can take her to someone who can help while you answer a few questions. We'll take you right to her as soon as everything's settled up."
This wasn't good. She probably wouldn't have any objection to getting into the city and leaving him to stall the guards, but Aric wasn't eager to deal with that kind of hassle. He thought fast.
"Now look here, you! How dare you manhandle my wife like that?!" he blurted, taking an aggressive step forward and lifting a fist, immediately abandoning Ellisia's "sister" idea for obvious reasons. She surreptitiously stretched out a foot and dug her heel into his toes, but he restrained his cry of pain with heroic effort. "I oughtta report you to your superior officer! Now hand her over or I'll have your stripes!"
Surprisingly, the guard actually panicked, hastily shoving Ell into Aric's arms, rather without the appropriate care one might normally attribute to a swooned lady. Aric didn't stop to question good fortune, and with a final warning glare from beneath the brim of his hat, he stormed off into the city, followed the street a suitable distance and rounded a corner--
at which point Ellisia promptly vaulted out of his arms, landed squarely on his foot and drove an elbow into his face. "What's the big idea calling me your wife?!" she snapped as he clapped hands to his abused face and hopped around on one foot. "That wasn't the story we agreed on!"
"We never agreed on any story!" he retorted, muffled from behind one glove as he let the other hand fall, sorely rubbing his cheek. "You did. Besides, even those idiots would never have believed you were my sister! Your hair isn't exactly getting any bluer, you know!"
Ell crossed her arms and turned away with an indignant huff. Aric snorted disdainfully and turned away himself, one fist moving to his hip as the other hand dropped. "Hmph..."
"...'least we're inside," Ellisia broke the silence first, glancing tentatively over her shoulder. "I guess that wasn't too bad."
"I suppose," he replied, offering a tentative truce without outright saying so. "Let's get going, eh?"
"Sure," she accepted.
Hooded mantles and absurd-looking hat were discarded promptly, not to be missed by one Aric Winterbourne in particular, and they began their investigation without incident. Well, save for one minor incident.
"Were those really even necessary?" he asked, as they were placing the lid back onto the oaken Waste Depository Bin (courtesy of the Philionel El Di Seyrune Department of Righteous Cleanliness™) into which they had dropped the offending articles.
"Well, no, I suppose," Ellisia admitted, tapping a thoughtful finger to her chin. Then she smirked. "Though you did look some kind of funny with that ridiculous hat on."
That earned her a trickle of magical ice down the collar, which in turn earned him a hammer-blow to the noggin. Then their investigation began without incident.
It was a difficult, roundabout sort of investigation, because they couldn't very well go around asking "Have you seen an ancient mystical relic just lying around town recently?", and their priority was in finding the Staff before Emilio or Kaia, not finding either of those two themselves--yet.
For the most part, simple observation was their only recourse, with occasional question on such things as new museum exhibits, shrine artifacts or uncovered "natural treasures"--which would have been ever so problematic, Aric shuddered to contemplate. He wasn't sure whether to be frustrated or relieved when none of the three turned up anything by the time the sun began its inexorable descent.
"This sucks," Aric grunted, pounding the bottom of a fist on the stone wall of the Atlass City Grand Library, and promptly cradling his offended appendage after the impact with the unyielding stonemasonship. "I can't believe this. Did Emilio play us for suckers? That would be so embarrassing..."
"We didn't have anything else to rely on," Ell explained with a frown, crossing her arms and tossing her sun-kissed hair, which took the opportunity to catch every last one of the sun's waning rays and reflect them dazzlingly for a heartbeat. "Besides, Atlass City is a big place--and there's still the underground, criminal element to interrogate."
"You're suggesting we deal with local gangs and thugs?" he demanded to know.
"'Deal with'?" She scoffed. "Certainly not. I said 'interrogate'."
"...right. So instead you think we should take on potentially the entire criminal element of Atlass City. Are you sure we've looked into every possible avenue? I mean, what if--"
He trailed off when he realized Ellisia wasn't even paying him any attention, instead gazing blankly over his shoulder as if he had sprouted a third arm growing from his back and it were waving a little "Seyrune Rules!" flag. He blinked slowly, snapped his fingers in front of her eyes...and then slowly, with a sinking feeling that was becoming distressingly familiar, he turned.
It was about the time he'd finished his about-face that he realized the muffled booms he'd been hearing for the last little while were not coming from the direction of the local Sorcerer's Guild branch. At first, he could only see the great stone head and shoulders and the unmistakable patch of disgustingly cute pink hair, in the distance above the street, but as rapidly as the crowd was parting it didn't take long to recognize Kaia and her golem-steed Onyx, tromping through the street at a decent clip that hinted at more than a casual stroll through the streets, even for a golem.
"Well, at least today won't be a total loss," Aric said, brightening somewhat, already cracking his knuckles and shifting his feet apart as the pedestrians paused in winding their various ways home to let this unusual monstrosity pass in their direction. "Ready, Ell? I'll take on the girl and whatever she summons while you see if you can muscle the golem. Good plan?" Silence. "Ell?"
Glancing over his shoulder, Aric fell over. The half-Dragon wasn't even paying him any attention at all, standing with her arms crossed and a contemplative look on her face. "She's moving awfully fast, nevermind having her golem out in the middle of a populated area. Something's unusual."
There was a moment of silence, save for the rapidly encroaching footprints.
"And how dare you send a fragile, innocent lady face to face with a hulking monstrous golem?!" Wham! The hammer drove him a bit further into the paving stones, making a nice little Aric-shaped indentation.
Dragging himself out of his own personal hole in the ground, Aric grumbled something vulgar under his breath. "Well, whatever it is, why don't we just--"
"Hi Mister Blue-hair and scary old lady! Bye Mister Blue-hair and scary old lady!" Just like that, Kaia and her golem were past them and gone, the Golem vaulting right over their heads with agility that was really out of place for stone--even animated stone. The two shared a moment of stunned silence, before Ell broke out with a truly classic "After them!" and took off running.
Before Aric could move to join her, a fireball ruptured the ground under his feet, sending him tumbling forward and scorching the cobblestones where he had been standing. Patting out the fire in his cape, he narrowed his ruby eyes and searched out the offender.
"Ahahahahahahahaha! So, come to delay my pursuit of your lackey, are you, Winterbourne? We'll see about that. Lhynn! After them!" Aric felt a breeze whoosh by along with a black, white and gray blur of motion. He knew better than to try to pursue again, not with Emilio around.
"Alright, fine!" Aric blurted, shoving to his feet and glaring icy daggers of potential excruciating pain at the platinum-haired sorcerer tossing a fireball up and down further up the street. "You want a fight, Van Strahd? You've got one! We're going to settle this now!" If the man wanted dramatics in front of a crowd, he could have one--besides, Ell would have enough trouble dealing with both Kaia, her Golem and Lhynn. The last thing Aric could afford was to let Emilio butt in too.
"I'd hoped for nothing less!" Vaulting further backward, Emilio cast his second fireball down, even as Aric began to sprint after him. Diving forward and angled to one side, Aric managed to avoid the blast radius this time while still gaining some distance. The last thing Aric really wanted was a fight in the middle of a town full of people, but Emilio was too caught up in the dramatics of the confrontation; a watching crowd suited his style just fine.
At least Emilio seemed to be levitating backward to an open area, Aric couldn't help but note as he continued to narrowly dodge Fireballs and Flare Arrows: the treasure-hunter was floating leisurely back to the City Square, which was thankfully not too far down Main Street from the Grand Library. Upon reaching the square, Emilio lofted up to settle upon the shoulder of a glorified depiction of Prince Philionel (standing with one finger righteously upraised to the heavens, as was his noble mustachioed face, and his Mighty Boot planted upon the posterior of a defeated lesser-demon), slowly crossing his arms and looking down with an air of superiority. This image was not helped by the fact that Aric, who had already been on his feet and searching all day without so much as a stop to sit and rest, had stumbled to a halt at the base of the statue with hands on his knees, panting for air.
Emilio actually let him catch his breath--somehow he figured he shouldn't be surprised--before slowly uncrossing his arms and beginning to gather power.
Aric recognized the feel of that gathering energy--it was the polar opposite of his own personal favorite Shamanistic spell. Was Emilio insane?! That spell could melt the whole City Square to slag, not to mention the statue he was standing on!
No, he wasn't insane. He knew what he wanted Aric to do. Emilio was nothing if not a crowd-pleaser, and he had a crowd to please. Gritting his teeth, Aric drew his own hands back and began to draw in the countering power, pulling invisible, metaphorical strings of power and gathering them into a coiled knot between his hands. Emilio wasn't chanting, and that meant he wasn't using the spell at full power. If Aric chanted fast, he might have a chance of overpowering it, but he couldn't afford to risk being an instant too late.
"Burst Flare!"
"Vice Freeze!"
The words were cried out in echoing unison as each sorcerer cast his hands at the other, releasing the magical power he had drawn together between them. The globes of shimmering heat energy and sparkling cold light started out bigger than their casters' respective heads, and continued to grow in diameter as they flew, until when they met they were each larger than both men together. The impact when they collided with midair was tremendous, akin to localized thunder, and when the light cleared a dense fog was left hanging in the air around the City Square, blinding both combatants and the eager audience. Aric silently cursed Emilio's flair for melodrama--the fog was too thick to even contemplate trying to sneak away and pursue Lhynn, Ell and Kaia. There was nothing to be done until it cleared, which had given Emilio ample time to draw his falchion and level it dramatically down at his foe.
"You're very good, Winterbourne," he stated grandly, his voice no doubt magically amplified. "As talented as ever. But so help me, before the watching eyes of Ceipheed and the Lord of Nightmares Herself, this day I shall defeat you at last!"
The crowd cheered, eating it up, and Emilio basked in his applause as Aric crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. "Emilio, Lhynn and Ellisia are both chasing down the real thief right now! If you'd just shut up and listen for five seconds--"
Ignoring him, Emilio continued as though never interrupted. "However, you've been a worthy opponent, and so I give you this chance alone to repent for your misdeeds and divulge to me the destination to which your minion is fleeing with the Artifact, and I will spare you the humiliation of defeat before a crowd!"
"Y'know what?" Aric began faux-conversationally, his eyebrow twitching ominously. Then his arms uncrossed and he took an aggressive step forward, balling a fist in front of him. "Bite me! You're not gonna listen to any answer but force, so force is what you're gonna get!" There was a collective "Ooh...!" from the crowd, which Aric had to admit was faintly satisfying...but he shook his head sharply of such notions, berating himself for letting association with this blithering idiot corrupt him. "Freeze Brid!" He hurled the spherical blast of cold one-handed, the other already drawn back to gather more power in preparation.
This time, Emilio didn't use magic to protect himself--instead, he simply vaulted forward, the spell cascading against Prince Phil's stone head thankfully harmlessly; a simple layer of frost that would melt away in a day, the reason Aric favored Water Shamanism. Turning toward where the other sorcerer landed (safely on his feet, thanks to a minor Levitation spell), Aric slowly crossed his arms again.
"So be it, Winterbourne," Emilio intoned gravely, "I will answer violence with violence and wring the answer to my questions out of you by force!"
Seeing that Emilio had landed in a patch of green grass, part of the City Square's park-like layout, gave Aric the glimmering of an idea, one he snatched at and ran with without pause for thought.
"Hey, look! It's a creepy suspicious looking Cloaked Figure™ accosting a helpless little old lady!" he pointed beyond the other's shoulder, his expression artfully aghast.
Amazingly enough (though perhaps not so much so considering that it was, in fact, Emilio), it worked. The platinum-haired sorcerer whirled, his sword ready to attend to this latest miscarriage of dramatic righteousness...and Aric allowed himself to grin and raise a hand slowly over his head. ...he really didn't get to do this often enough. "Dill Brand!" Thrusting the palm down toward the ground, he watched it detonate skyward in a splendid explosion of force, sending even a few stray cobblestones skirting the circle of blasted earth skittering over the ground.
As Emilio went skyrocketing off into the distance until he was little more than a tiny speck in the sky (his platinum hair flashing in the sun with an appropriate little ping), Aric clenched a fist in front of him and turned with a swirl of his slightly charred but still white mantle. "Anybody else wanna make my day?"
For the most part, the members of the audience who had neither lost interest, nor fled in terror of middling-to-high-caliber magic, simply gazed in varying degrees of amazement, anxiety and even a few in disinterest. Then, slowly, they began to turn around and go about their daily lives again, not eager for whatever reason to mess with an irate sorcerer. Thankfully, most of the eyes were off him when the flinch caught up with him, and he blinked in bafflement as he looked down at his formerly raised arm that had suddenly given out on him. He frowned, to see a hole burnt in the sleeve like a slash-mark, and slightly-charred skin beneath--and not the only one of its kind, either, upon further inspection of his person. Some of Emilio's spells must have come closer than he'd anticipated.
Embarrassingly enough, it was then that he got an unanticipated answer, in the form of a soft, melodious chiming sound that accompanied the ringing of metal (as from a staff or cane) upon the stones. "I might be able to 'make' yours, Prestidigitator."
"Presti-who? O-Oh, sorry! Gesundheit!"
A bead of sweat rolled down the young woman's temple.