Something to get off of my mind.
Lord Destroyer,
I understand what your saying, but how come that when I turn the town into a bustling city when it's originally a five building town (or close enough), you don't mind but you do mind when she has a bow. 0.0
It's TRUE that it's out of place with the game. But really now, I'm going to assume that there are more than eight bows in the Dark Dawn world, or else hunting would become a very difficult business and meat would be the rarest commodity around.
Still, thanks for the criticism. I hadn't noticed it myself and it was a good wake up call to stay relevant to the game...
Authors Note:
Edit: Well I have to admit. I was expecting a LOT more reviews within the time this chapter has been on the site... I know at least 25 people must've read it and only 3 reviews, truly, it saddens me to see people being so very very unwilling to grant a writer they like (I am refering to people following any future stories from my account) some much needed pats on the back. Then again, it took even me some time to realize the effect of positive stimulation on others so that would explain why others, have not. So consider this your official wake up call: Yes. We do enjoy reading reviews and especially responding to them. Being in touch with the community is a big thing. Sending a review takes no more than five minutes and is everything a writer needs to make his die. I truly hope that, not just for myself but for all writers out there, you will heed those words.
So... This is by far my longest chapter yet, and definitely my most enjoyable one. Just like my first two chapters, everything that happened flowed straight out of me and I feel like I did an amazing job portraying the characters, compared to my previous chapters.
Truly, I am proud of myself.
Alas, school has started once more. And in a few weeks I will be in my last dash towards exams. This means I will have less and less time to write until around April! I've already noticed the effects myself. I planned finishing this on the third of January but I was outdone by time. Badly. In the holidays I would've continued until around two AM, and finished it but right now I'm stuck at just before twelve every day lest I want to be useless during school hours.
So yeah, enjoy guys!
Chapter four: Fate Denied.
"Do we have everything?" a voice said at the eastern entrance to Harapa.
A boy with yellow hair, no older than seventeen turned around to his friends.
They were all ready for combat or a long trip. Or maybe both.
The yellow haired boy had a large sword strapped to his back and wore a dark blue half sleeve vest with matching pants. Sturdy heavy leather boots made for traveling sat around his feet and he had a very distinct yellow scarf around his neck, hanging over his back.
"He must be their guide." a passing man thought.
The blue haired boy stepped closer and spoke up. "Yeah, Tyrell and I've got everything at any rate. We've got the food, tools and some other things, like you assorted..." The yellow haired boy responded back with a smile. "Good." He then turned towards the green haired girl.
She hadn't been in a talkative mood all day and they all knew it... After last night she just hadn't been feeling her best but she had no idea why. "Must've been the food." she kept telling herself as she nodded towards the boy in front of her when he turned to her. "Y-yeah. I've got everything." she added when she saw him frown. A moment of awkward silence passed by them, until he decided to shrug and keep moving instead of bothering with it.
"That was close..." she thought. That was the moment for him to bring up her silent demeanor of this morning. Something must have stopped him. "Why didn't he..." She couldn't help but ponder.
She didn't get a chance to further ponder it though. "Right, let's go then." She shook up out of her thoughts as Matthew continued. "The sooner we do this the better, the towns people told me the next part will take us north-east towards Passaj, which is uphill the entire way for a good week's travel."
"And then we have to climb a damn mountain as well..." Tyrell noted grudgingly. Matthew lowered his head with a sigh before he responded. "Just deal with it. We all have to walk it."
"Yeah yeah. I know." the Mars adept responded, staring away at the path ahead.
"Let's go then." Matthew said with a determinated look as he turned around and went on first of the group. Tyrell followed close second, catching up to his friend and walking by his side. Within seconds the two best friends were joking around, poking fun at things and having a good laugh.
Rief followed third, followed by Karis whom went after them last. And thus the group of four adepts got on their way towards Passaj.
After two days, the group reach a fifty meter high rock wall, a dead end on the route.
"Strange. This isn't mentioned on the map." Matthew mumbled as he gazed over the map that Tyrell had picked up in the town.
"Let me take a look." Karis said as she dropped her bag behind her and walked over to Matthew. She took place right next to him, her shoulder leaning against his as she grabbed the map on one side and gently pulled it closer so she could look as well. "Maybe I can figure it out."
Matthew glowed up, she was so close! "Calm down, it's just Karis." he said to himself mentally. Still, his cheeks went tomato red as she turned, her left breast now lightly brushing his arm."Is she that ignorant?" He asked himself. But even before he could regain his composure, she spoke again. "I think we took this road by accident, we should've taken that smaller path a while back."
"The last time the road split was more than two hours ago." Tyrell said as he came closer, he gazed over the two from the side and wondered if Karis was simply not thinking about it due to being too focused on the traveling or that she was deliberately standing this close to Matthew. "I'm not sure if it's a good idea to spend four hours getting back this far."
Tyrell was now standing in front of the two, and tilted the map so that it was horizontally, Karis turned away from Matthew and the three stood in a triangle form around it to look at it.
Matthew glared at his friend, but he did not know whether he did that on purpose or if he shouldn't thank him for saving him from that awkward situation or not. Did he actually mind..? He shook the thoughts from his head and rejoined the conversation.
Rief was staring at the rocky cliff, which stood at a an angle towards them going upwards which caused the place to give one a very intimidated feeling. The Mercury adept sat down on one of the rocks nearby as he stared at the debating group. He could feel the tension from here, there was something going on between them outside of planning the route but he just couldn't put his finger on it.
"Well if we try to go through the forest we might be faster." Tyrell said, quickly glared at by Karis.
"Oh yes, why not get lost like you two did last time. Remember how I had to lead you both out of the forest?"
"I'm telling you we were fine! I was already pulling Tyrell out of there when-" Matthew responded, but Karis quickly interjected.
"You were going the other way! How is that the right way?" At this, Matthew could only sigh and Tyrell couldn't help but smirk broadly. "Oh yes, like you're one to enjoy this Tyrell. You were the one that caused it to begin with." Karis snapped at him, quickly Tyrell looked away from the other two, rolling his eyes as he tried to figure out how to respond but to no avail.
"So... Why don't we go over it?" It suddenly sounded from behind them. In sync, the three childhood friends raised their heads, looked around and frowned at Rief questioningly. For a moment Rief couldn't help but think it was something they had practiced, so precise was the timing.
"Ahem. So yeah. Why don't we go over it? We could just climb it?" he continued.
The three childhood friends fell silent, Tyrell's mouth fell open as if he didn't believe what he just heard. Matthew simply stared at Rief, searching his expression for obvious signs of joking whilest Karis crossed her arms across her stomach, looking up at the rocky cliff and apparently pondering the possibility.
Eventually Matthew made the first response to this idea. "We don't really have any climbing gear Rief."
Rief quickly responded back, taking the others by surprise at his suggestion. "So? You're a Venus adept right? Can't you use psynergy to move us on a rock up there?"
Matthew stared at him in disbelief. That would be madness he thought, it was a sheer cliff fifty meters up, maybe sixty!
"I don't think I- Well I could but... It'd be close and really... Tough." He tried to object, but he already said he believed he could do it, there was no helping the storm to come now.
Tyrell was the first to comment on it as well, and responded ever so supportive to his childhood friend. "Well if you think you can pull it off Matthew I'm with you the entire way." Matthew looked at Tyrell and they both grinned simultaneously. Rief couldn't help but think just how creepy it was how close those three were.
"Well... I don't know." Karis objected. "The last thing I want right now is to almost be up there and then suddenly fall forty meters if he can't manage anymore."
"Jeez Karis, have some trust in Matthew. He's stronger than he lets on you know." Tyrell commented. Matthew immediately glared daggers at his friend. It was true, he knew he was stronger than all of them. He couldn't do as much with psynergy as Karis or Rief but there was no doubt he could best any of them one on one. He didn't want to discourage his friends though, or have them rely too much on himself so he tried to keep it more or a less of a secret. Tyrell had found out when the two of them sparred and forced Matthew into a rough situation some time ago.
Still, the Mars adept might be a lumbering oaf from time to time, he's still pretty smart when he gets his moments.
He noticed his friend's glare and mended the situation, simply by acting as if he by no means had meant it. "Well, you know, you don't really watch him when we're in a fight you... Watch the monsters."
Matthew stopped glaring at Tyrell and faced to watch both Rief and Karis. To his surprise, they both shrugged it off as a bad comment.
An eerie silence fell over the group as nobody knew what to say.
"In any case." Matthew finally said. "I think... I think I'll manage to do it, but I'll be pushing my psynergy so I'll need a breather once we're up. You guys okay with that?" He looked over the rest of the group. Tyrell immediately grinned at his friend. Followed by Karis whom nodded and softly said: "Well if you think so." For a moment, Rief felt like objecting but then he remembered it was his own idea to begin with and decided that to object to his own idea would make him look like a fool.
"Alright guys, gather up, we'll go up in one go. Make sure you've got everything from down here, we're not going back down anytime soon." Tyrell went over to the bags, and grabbed both his and Matthews, smiling at his friend as he walked back to him. Both Karis and Rief picked up their own bags as well and took a spot next to Matthew.
"Everyone ready?" Matthew asked as he took a sturdy stance, bracing his feet into the grass. "We're ready. Let's go.. Matthew." Karis responded. The Venus adept couldn't help but notice the accent she placed on his name, she probably misspoke the words he figured. But this wasn't the time to be thinking why's or how's. Right now he had to focus, and make sure that they'd make it up.
The young Venus adept began channeling his psynergy, it flowed out of him and into the entire area around them. Then, as he felt he was ready, Matthew slammed his right palm into the ground, the very earth around the four adepts, save for what they were standing on, deforming to press more mass under their 'dirt platform' and thus lift them up.
Five meters. Ten meters. Twenty meters. Matthew sped up, feeling his psynergy wane away from him as he had to maintain more and more dirt in its place. The small platform they were standing on crumbled away at the edges, forcing the three adepts to stand ever closer to one another and the casting Venus adept.
Thirty meters. Forty meters! "Almost there!" Matthew thought as he doubled his efforts, the dirt platform now half the size it originally was.
Forty-five meters... Forty... Eight meters... Forty-Nine! Sweat was raining down from his face as he sheer stress on his body became clearly visible. At this point Tyrell realized Matthew wouldn't be able to actually put them on the ledge. He quickly turned, acting on instinct and grabbed the first person he got a grip on other than Matthew, and threw that person to the ledge. It turned out to be Rief, who was almost dazed by the throw, but managed to land on the ledge. Tyrell then quickly turned to Karis, staring at her as she glared daggers back at him. But before she could even tell him not to, he had grabbed her sturdily by the sides, causing he to flinch noticeably.
He couldn't hang on. He was almost out of psynergy and it had become impossible to rise any further, as he glanced to his side he noticed Rief had made it onto it, and then saw Karis taking a nose first leap for the cliff side, screaming all the way, landing halfly on it with her legs dangling over the side. Then went Tyrell, with a mighty leap he landed legs first on the ledge, making it all the way up. Now for himself.
Tyrell turned around as he landed, he quickly nodded at Matthew for him to jump. So he did. Matthew stopped casting, the platform quickly crumbled away. He jumped, putting all of his strength into it. The two friends reached out for each other. Time seemed to slow down as this happened, every movement passed as if it took a minute, every movement could be planned and re-planned to make sure they'd reach each other...
She'd managed to crawl up on to the ledge, and still just crawling, she turned her head around. Some of her green hair had fallen in front but she could see it plain as day. Matthew pushing off... Matthew leaping... Matthew swinging his arms trying to get more momentum... And then, Matthew disappearing beneath below the cliff's edge for as far as she could see. She was stunned, she only managed to do one thing. "MATTHEEEEW!" She screamed at the top of her lungs. Rief, who had taken to sitting back comfortably could only gasp in terror as he saw the same thing.
There was no time to think. Tyrell noticed Matthew wasn't going to make it so he quickly dropped himself onto the cliff edge, landing nastily on his clavicle. He stretched out his arm as far as he could, reaching for his friend. He could hear Karis scream louder than he ever had before and could only close his eyes... And then, he felt something touching his wrist. Immediately the two grabbed for each other and Tyrell knew he had a fighting chance.
"Karis!" was all that Matthew though, her scream had set itself into his head, he instinctively grabbed on as tight as possible to Tyrell's hand and wrist but the only thing that managed to course through his mind at that time was her – and what would happen to her if he let go. Images of her filled whatever parts of his brain should have been thinking of survival, her screaming, her crying... Matthew's mind screamed at him, he had to focus! There was no way he'd let her down like that. Not now, not ever. He knew he was in a bad way though, the platform was gone and it was a sheer fifty meter drop down if he let go. But he wasn't going to, if he had to he would put his nails against the stone wall and hold on that way. He wasn't going to let her down.
She couldn't move... Not a finger. Tears rolled down her cheeks against all he desires to not cry. She wanted to dash over to Tyrell, she wanted to help him pull Matthew up, but she couldn't. Every fiber in her body denied her any control. All she could do was sit there, her eyes crying though she didn't know why. Thoughts raced through her mind faster than they ever had before. "He can't die, he can't die, he won't die. He wouldn't do that. HE WOULDN'T DO THAT!" she screamed subconsciously as she couldn't do anything but look on, terror gripping her body.
"Not good!" Rief thought, logical thought had reclaimed his mind and he thought through the best thing to do next, in a split second he glanced at Karis and realized she was nailed to the ground. It was up to him, in that same split second he jolted up and went to Tyrell's side, grabbing his shoulders and pulling as hard as he could. "Anything! I have to do whatever I can! Matthew's depending on us!" he thought.
He could feel someone gripping his shoulder and pulling. This was what he needed! Now he had the opportunity to swing his other hand down as well without risking sliding off. The Mars adept quickly grabbed Matthew's hand with a loud grunt. Slowly he began pulling upwards, using Rief's help to pull upwards. "I'm not letting you go you dammit..." Tyrell thought. He began pulling Matthew in with all of his strength.
"Matthew-" Her mind interrupted her, logic was finally kicking into action once more. Rief and Tyrell were both hanging on as much as they could, pulling him up. And she was just sitting there, crying. "What's wrong with me!" she wanted to yell, but she couldn't even whimper it. Slowly she crawled up, her legs shaking. After a short moment she moved over to Tyrell and Rief, and grabbed Tyrell as well, pulling as hard as her muscles would let her.
"Alright, PULL!" Tyrell yelled. In one movement, they pulled Matthew up to the point that he grabbed the ledge and they grabbed his clothes, pulling him up over the edge within just twenty seconds from Tyrell yelling. The Mars adept fell over next to his friend, gasping for air. In total he must have been holding Matthew up for at least seven minutes. If it were Rief or Karis...
Tyrell looked towards his side, still gasping for air, only to realize Matthew had already sat up. He should be out of it but still he's moving. Truly an amazing guy. Then he realized what for.
She stood there, right in front of him, arms wrapped in front of her stomach. Tears rolling down her cheeks and falling on the ground as her entire body shook from the various emotions that she was experiencing. She stood there, fists clenched tight, staring at Matthew, as if not believing he was still alive. She stood there... And there was nothing she could do to stop it. She bursted into crying as she slumped down to the ground onto her knees, her feet resting next to her sides as she cried, more than either of her childhood friends had ever seen her cry.
The young, blue haired boy sat there next to the group, his left knee close to his chest with his other leg relaxing on the ground as he looked at the odd scene. He had never seen Karis like this. They've been together for... Three weeks now? Maybe a few days less. But in that time he had gotten to know the others as if they had been together since forever.
It was as if he was staring at an emotional wreck. This wasn't Karis...
The Mercury adept could not help but feel out of place. Where were his feelings about this? They just saved Matthew's life on the brink of it being lost, and he didn't feel anything. He was glad, but not ecstaticly happy. Not even slightly happy actually.
"Am I really a part of this... group? Am I just... tagging along..?" he pondered. He'd never had much friends. In his early youth Rief was often bullied and then saved by his sister whom had mastered psynergy much earlier than he had. Never had he felt like he was really a part of a group until he met Matthew, Tyrell and Karis. But now...
Rief was still thinking deeply, when Matthew decided he couldn't bear watching her like this.
Shakingly the Venus adept tried to get up onto his feet. He failed though, and sunk down onto a knee. But he immediately tried again, and got up to his feet and slumped over to Karis. As he came close, he collapsed onto his knees in front of her, and hugged her tight, holding her sobbing body against his own.
For a second it seemed as if his breathing and her sobbing melted together into one rhythm as Karis fell even more speechless along with the rest. A feeling of peace and tranquility fell over him as he continued to hold her. He couldn't help but think about how nice this felt. But the adrenaline of everything that happened just now prevented his mind from actually processing those thoughts.
He looked on as he had sat up when Matthew stood up. It was nice that this was happening for the two of them... Tyrell thought. Yet he couldn't help but feel agitated. He had just saved his friends life and he goes straight to hug her. Did he even matter? Then it struck him that it might not be due to that, that he was agitated. He had begun seeing Karis in a different light and this had now struck him like lightning by clear sky. He knew better than to try to flirt with her. Ever since... They stopped, he hadn't tried to look at her in any other way than a friend. Yet here his best friend was hugging the girl he still seemed to care for.
"Bastard." For a second, Tyrell considered breaking them up... But he knew he would be the bad guy, he knew the others would frown upon him for that, so he didn't. Instead he glared at the two, envy filling his body slowly against his wish.
"What is- Why is he-... He's-" Her mind was just barely reactivating... She couldn't stop the crying. Nor could she stop herself from laying her own arms around his body as he hugged her. But despite her autonomous movements, her mind was overclocking itself with thoughts. "He's... Hugging... Me..." If she had the slightest control of herself, she would've ripped herself apart from him, too embarrassed to look at him for the rest of the week But her body wouldn't obey. Just like before, it wouldn't move.
Still... She liked it... He smelled dirty, but somehow, being embraced by him like this felt nice, comfortable. And somehow natural. "This is wrong, it's Matthew, I shouldn't think like that." She kept saying to herself, but the thoughts came back every time she ended that sentence. There was no stopping them.
So she sat there, her sobbing slowly subsiding, their rhythm breaking...
What was he doing. He was hugging Karis. His lifelong friend, the girl his first memory in his life is about, where she hit him after he took one of her toys and his mother came running when he cried when they were just little. This was Karis! This was wrong! But it felt so right to hug her, he had no idea why but it did, and he didn't want to let go. Not yet. But he wasn't breathing as heavily anymore, nor was she still crying. She was just faintly sobbing every few seconds. It wouldn't be right, no matter the situation, to keep holding her when it was like that, so he had to let go. He had to back off.
So he did. Slowly he released his grip around her, moving backwards and forcing her to let go as well. As he did, he noticed his scarf was gone... His father's heritage was gone, it must have fallen off somewhere along the way.
Slowly the Venus adept stood up, still shaking, but he managed. Karis remained on the ground, her arms had dropped down from his back as she was sitting there. She wasn't looking up, or anywhere at all for that matter.
His friend was standing up, finally, Tyrell thought. About time he stopped hugging her so intensely. When Matthew gazed around him, getting his bearings, the Mars adept flashed his usual grin at him. It had become obvious that they wouldn't be going anywhere. Matthew was a useless chunk of meat right now, he wouldn't be able to run fifty meters and Tyrell knew it. Still, his own shoulder had taken quite the beating back there, falling badly on his clavicle and then all the downward force as well. He didn't need a doctor to know that his arm needed rest badly. And then there was Karis. He'd never seen her like that... Frankly he wanted to have been the one to have comforted her but it was too late now. Regardless, she was a wreck. She wouldn't be able to start walking right now and keep herself on her feet without support. The only one who was in a decent shape was Rief but that simply wasn't enough. They'd need at least three of them in proper condition to have any chance at hitting the road. It wasn't a hard conclusion, they were stuck here. Luckily it was already late in the afternoon so they wouldn't lose too much time.
Apparently, Matthew had noticed this as well and with a sigh and a nod to his best friend, he spoke up with a rasping voice. "I think it's best if we camp out here for the night guys... Let's... Let's set up the tents..." He had cut himself off back there, he had wanted to assign tasks to everybody, like how he usually leaves one of the tents to Karis to set up... But the last thing he wanted to do right now, was to force her to do anything at all. Not when she was like this.
He was the first to get up, his bag had an entire tent stashed in it so he could set one up right away, so such he started. The Mercury adept cleaned out his bag, and began working on setting the tent up, conveniently in front of Karis. The two other adepts got busy as well. With a nod they made obvious to one another what they would do. Tyrell would create the camp fire, whilest Matthew would take care of the least strenuous task, organizing provisions and getting the cooking equipment ready.
She slowly got up, first one foot on that ground, then pushing up with another, a slow process if nothing else but at least she was moving again. No use just sitting there. Karis slumped over to Rief, offering her help which he silently accepted.. The tension was clear, any words said would be in vain so none were said.
Day passed into evening, and evening passed into night.
Rief had made clear that he would take first watch for the group when he determinedly sat down next to the fire. Nobody questioned him, they'd use their regular schedule with him first.
And thus the night on top of the cliff began.
Author's Note:
Well well. I do hope I surprised you all with how I changed my writing style. I figured I'd add a lot more perspective and personality if I wrote every part from the eyes of someone close by. Be it a random person or one of the adepts. Personally, I loved writing like that.
Without a shred of doubt, my longest chapter so far... 5034 words. Almost twice as long as my last one! That plus school is kind of my excuse for why it took so long! .
I also think I did a pretty good job on the drama in this chapter. As one can see I'm building up a lot of things in a row. The shadows in the cave, the nightmare, Karis' silence that morning, the close call jump. It's all going to come back sooner or later in one way or another. I never drop plot twists. But for all I'll tell you, it might take another ten chapters before they do and it'll be about snow cones instead! Muahahaha...
Since I wrote this in a wholly new way, I'm kind of afraid it's a bad read despite how much I liked it... So, if you've got any complaints, now is the time to tell me.
If you find grammar issues, would you mind telling me? Seriously, I only noticed whom wasn't who'm because someone said so. Improvement is all about knowledge about oneself and this cannot always be supplied by yourself.
And as a final note, I'm planning on letting this run into the tens of chapters. It'll end when I reach the official end of Dark Dawn + an epilogue, but due to my spontaneous writing, I have no idea WHEN or HOW it will end either.