Chapter 3: Heading East
Lake Ruins: Shizontonia Outskirts (10:50AM)
Repede was described to not get along with strangers by Yuri; Estelle has always tried to get the affection of the said dog, but to no avail. Yet again, Repede is approaching another stranger (to the party at least), whom also recognizes the former's presence.
"That pipe… You're Repede!" the knight said.
"You know that guy too!" Rita and Karol shouted in unison.
"Yes, are you his owner?" the knight asked Karol.
"Umm… No, he belongs to friend of ours whom we're looking for." Karol replied. "Who are you, and how do you know Repede?"
"I'm Jurgis a Knight posted a town not far from here." The man Jurgis answered. "Who are you guys and what are you doing here?"
"Well I'm Karol, the girl with the goggles is Rita, the old man is Raven, the Krityan is Judith and she's Estelle." Karol explained to the knight. "We're here trying to look for Yuri a friend of ours."
"Yuri? Yuri Lowell?" Jurgis asked. He couldn't actually believe that Yuri would have these kinds of friends. His first expression on Yuri when he was in the same squad with him is that he's someone that loves fighting and plays no regards to the rules so long as the end justifies the means. "He's gone missing?"
"Yeah, by any chance, have you seen him?" Judith asked. "He's been missing for a whole week now."
Rita in the other hand, began to scan the area with Raven. She has heard of a blastia that went berserk and started releasing a huge amount of aer in this general location and started investigating since the aer concentration in this area was below normal.
"I did see him when he came to visit the post of my town." Jurgis replied. "He said he was going to come and visit Shizontania and pay respects to Captain Niren."
"Umm… If I may ask," Estelle said facing the knight. "But you said it's dangerous here why is that?"
"Well, a bright white light appeared here a few days ago and I came here to investigate." Jurgis explained. "According to some witnesses, they heard a fight occurring with a swordsman and a monster within the forest, after a few moments a bright light appeared. Once the bright light dispersed, a white streak headed of to the eastern direction."
"Whatever happened here must have used up a lot of aer." Rita said as she came back from her investigation. "The aer concentration in this area is far too low."
"Captain are you done with your investigation?" Chastel Aiheap appeared from the forest along with her sister Hisca. "Oh, its you guys."
"You're from the same post?" Raven asked the twins.
"Yeah, our squad mostly stayed together." Hisca explained. "The only one's that moved on was Flynn and Yuri."
"How did your investigation go?" Jurgis asked facing Hisca.
"Aer concentration is also low in the town and we found traces of two huge monster footprints." Hisca explained.
"The monster footprints aren't found in our records so we can't say what it is." Chastel continued for her sister.
"Alright then, we'll head back to our post." Jurgis said facing the twins. "Hisca do a follow up report and have someone send it to the capital."
Jurgis then faced the party, "I'm sorry we couldn't be of any help. We'll be heading back to our post, please take care of yourselves and I pray that you'll be able to find Yuri."
With that, the captain bid them farewell and headed out of the ruins.
"It seems that whatever happened here, Yuri may have fought with it, as for the outcome of the battle, we probably won't be able to know until we see the monster or Yuri himself." Raven pointed out.
"And it seems Repede can't smell the scent of Yuri anywhere else aside from this area of the ruins." Rita said as she observed Repede trying to smell the scent of Yuri, "Our only clue is that the light that witnesses saw which headed into the eastern direction."
"That's a start, but let's stop by the first town we see on the way, if any other people saw the light." Estelle added.
"Ok then, let's head back to Baul." Judith said as she started walking back to the forest.
Somewhere on the way East (12:50PM)
After having their lunch while flying on the way east, each party member had their own thoughts in the outcome of their first investigation.
Karol had apparently taken the role of leader of the group, he was no longer quite hesitant on taking the role. After all, he's the boss of the Guild Brave Vesperia. Karol has been on the look out with Estelle for any town that they could see on the way here. Surprisingly the area below them is a desert, but since they're flying at such high heights, the heat isn't affecting them that much.
Estelle was on look out with Karol, she was anxious to find more clues on where Yuri could be, by the look of their first clue, he seemed have been injured. Despite the disappearance of Blastia, she can still cast spells albeit, in lower strength. Estelle however decided that it's not the time for regret and indecisiveness so she looks out for any town in their sight of vision in a serious manner. Given it was such a small thing, it seemed odd for someone to have such a serious look on their face when all their looking for was a town.
Rita was pretty much tinkering with her replacement for her blastia. Since the past battle with the monster, she dedicated herself on finding a way to make it more efficient so she can contribute more to a battle. Another reason for her complete dedication is that she's too afraid on looking down. She's not scared of flying only if it's on low heights, but when it comes to high heights, the flying heights of Baul, that's when she becomes scared. Of course, she refuses to admit this.
Judith and Raven apparently was talking about something in the back. They seemed to be talking about the investigation of the knights, and the odd concentration of aer in Shizontania and the monster they previously fought. When Karol came to ask what they're talking about, they divert the attention of the conversation to something else. Rita already had a slight clue of what they're talking about but refuses to talk anymore about the matter when Karol came to ask.
Silence once again returned to the group, things have gotten more depressing since the disappearance of Yuri. As the silence became near unbearable to the point that even Karol would begin shouting on the top of his lungs, Repede barked and Estelle began shouting that there was a town below them.
Town in the Middle of the Desert (1:30PM)
Once they landed in a safe distance away from the town in the middle of the desert, Karol was surprised to see a familiar face once they reached the town. It was Nan.
"Nan! What are you doing here?" Karol shouted as he ran closer to the said girl.
"Oh its you Karol… I came here to do some guild business about a monster that appeared here several days ago." Nan explained. "But it already ran away by the time I got here. According to the town people, a man with long black hair was the one that defeated it."
Nan was a member of the Hunting Blades Guild. The Hunting Blades Guild basically accepts any request that involves defeating a monster. In the eyes of the guild, any monster is considered to be evil.
"A man with long black hair?" Estelle asked as she has finally caught up to Karol. Could it be Yuri?
"Yeah, I wanted to meet the man who defeated the monster, due to description I thought it'd be Yuri but whoever that person is, he already let town." Nan explained.
Raven who was the slowest to arrive due to his self proclaimed old age (35 years old), was heavily panting earlier but has finally caught his breath and asked a question, "Does anyone in this town remember what kind of monster is it? Does it by any chance have red aer surrounding it?"
"Yeah according to the reports. How did you know?" Nan asked.
"Did this man by any chance fought using his left hand?" Judith asked, she wanted to make sure of the details.
"According to the towns people he fought with both, not only that, I heard the man warded the enemy off on his own." Nan answered.
"He single handedly defeated that monster?" Rita asked in disbelief. She knew that man could do things that people thought was impossible like coming back alive after a fall from the tower of Zaude, and now he actually defeated a monster that not even together they could beat.
"Anyway, I'm heading back to Hallure, I've got nothing to do here and there has been a lot of requests in the guild lately." Nan said as she began to exit the town. "See ya Karol."
"See ya Nan." Karol said as he waved goodbye to Nan.
"Well I guess this would explain why the monster that we fought was looking for Yuri." Judith said to the group. "But what power does Yuri have that would make those monsters fear him?"
"He's definitely human," Raven said as he scratches his head to think of answers. "He still has Vesperia No.1 right Rita? Maybe that's why they fear him."
"Even if he has that, him alone wouldn't be able to provide enough energy alone without blastia to provide enough power to pierce the red aer armor that the monster uses, and inflict multiple wounds." Rita said as she began to think of a logical explanation of how Yuri single handedly defeated the monster.
Estelle then noticed that Nan was heading back to the town, she was apparently running with her weapon out.
"What's wrong Nan?" Estelle asked. "Did you forget something?"
"No the monster has returned!" As she said this, an explosion was heard inside the town, when everyone looked at the general location they saw a monster with red aer covering it. The monster had a lot of wounds, apparently it has come back for Yuri and is trying to find where the man is hiding. The monster though similar to the one they fought on the way to Zaphias, was not the same one. The main difference between the two was this monster seemed more berserk than the other, had 4 wings instead of two and had one horn, though it was broken.
Karol hoped that they'll be enough to take it down.
Author's Notes:
Despite that I said I would try to have as little battle scenes as possible, but this is Tales of Vesperia we're talking about, so battles would come sooner or later.
And as I've said before I haven't actually played the game so I will got a lot of details wrong, though I'll try to do as much research as I can before I would post some things based on the game.
Since I don't actually have an idea where Shizontania would lie in the actual map of Tecra Lumiries, the new towns that I mention here (or if I decided to choose an actual town from the map or make it up) would probably have no name until later.
I'll try to update in a weekly basis. This is my first fan fiction after all so I'm going to do my best to have this as a completed story.
Reviews and constructive criticism would be helpful.