Book One: I hunt, therefore I am!
Chapter Six: Helping anyone in need, no one can succeed like Doctor Robert!
Now that they could get a closer look at him it was possible to see that Doctor Fran had large green eyes, along a thick bushy mustache and beard that were mostly black but were starting to pick up a few flecks of gray here and there.
Alexander very slowly slid his sword back into its sheath and approached offering one of his smooth slim black glove.
"Alexander Diamondclaw, I'm the leader of the 'ship people' as you called us." He introduced himself.
Doctor Fran took Alexander's black glove in his much bigger and rougher brown one and clearly gave the silver haired man a hand shake that was jovial and enthusiastic to the point of fracturing a weaker man's bones.
"It's a pleasure, a great pleasure to make your acquaintance! I'm just glad that I was able to get to you before any of the broken ones more vicious than Minxy did." He gushed.
Alexander worked to win his hand free first chance he got and raised an eyebrow in surprise.
"Broken ones?" He repeated the phrase, unsure of its meaning.
Doctor Fran nodded sagely.
"Yes, that's what they tend to call themselves, those who have the wit to call themselves anything at all. If you mostly stuck to the beach yesterday you might not have seen any, but as you go further island this place is regrettably teaming with them. It's a long story would you care to hear it on the way back to my estate?" He invited.
"You have an estate?" Cal inquired eagerly surging forward, clearly eager to spend the night sleeping on something other than a bed of grass, sand or dirt.
"That's just what I call it, my own little joke you see..." Doctor Fran announced in a voice so loud that it was hard to believe that there might ever be anything 'little' about the man.
"Still, it'd be more comfortable lodgings than you're likely find out here. Not only that by my manservant Orson can do some wonderful things with the local flora and fauna. If you don't believe me, well just take a good look. It's not exactly easy to put on weight after you get shipwrecked but I seem to have managed it all the same!" He noted with playful self deprecation.
As he was speaking of matters culinary James Firecat continued to stare gobsmacked at the basket of berries he had been given.
His was the expression of a devout missionary who had traveled to a distant land and been honored with some pagan fetish. It was clear what he was holding was a gift of some importance, but all the same... what exactly was he suppose to do with it?
"I think we'd all be very interested in seeing your home and sampling your stores if you are kind enough to offer." Devi cut in, taking the wicker basket from James before the werecat's expression of concerned befuddlement could be misinterpretation as fear that the berries might be poisonous.
"You are one and all quite welcome! Thanks to my unique situation I am quite well stocked for provisions but have a great dearth of company. It's been years and years since someone actually managed to survive a shipwreck on these treacherous shores. That would be my ward, Delphi, poor girl was little more than a stripling when I first found her. I'm sure my assistant Felix will be delighted to find that this time around he won't need to worry about changing any of this batch of arrivals. Come, come, it's a bit of a walk I am sad to say but we should be able to get back in time for a late lunch at the very least!" Doctor Fran promised them.
The adventurers shrugged, and as remaining on the beach was unlikely to offer them much in the way of new information, protection, or hopes of escape they decided to follow the dark haired man into the jungle.
"You were going to tell me about the 'broken ones' on the way, right?" Alexander reminded their guide.
The silver haired man's long sure stride allowed him to easily keep up with his more corpulent companion's rolling gate.
"Yes, yes of course. It all started... well I'm sad to say that quite honestly I have no idea how it all started. I only arrived on this island myself somewhere between two and three decades ago. Can't be sure of the exact year, it does terrible things to a man's memory living mostly by himself with fewer people to talk to than he can count on his fingers. I hope you can understand Mr. Diamondjaw." The Doctor began.
"Diamondclaw." Alexander reminded him, but after his experiences working alongside James he was surprisingly tolerant of eccentrics... so long as they made good on their promises.
"Ohh, of course, I do beg pardon, as I said my memory isn't quite what it used to be. At least I think it's not quite what it used to be, when one's memory starts to go, how can one be truly certain that it was ever any better? To do would require them to recall something clearly and if I could do that... I trust you see predicament." He admitted.
A curt nod from Alexander was all it took to get him to continue along.
"Anyway as I was saying, by the time I washed up on this island, I'm afraid things had already not so much reached a boiling point as an evaporating one. Luckily over the years I've been able to piece together at least some of it from various journals and writing I found of those who came before.
This island was once relatively prosperous as such places go with a thriving human population, instead of one whose numbers may have ended up nearly doubling with your arrival. You see one day a horrible plague came, I'm not sure of its source, though it might have something to do with the bizarre mystics who may still inhabit a fortress about half a day or so from my estate.
At first it seemed to simply winnowed out the population as most diseases do, but then it began to affect the animals as well. It wasn't killing them, it was... changing them, transforming them in ways that I would find impossible to believe if I had not seen so many examples with my own eyes.
The plague then turned this new horror upon the remaining people of the island. It made beasts grow more intelligent, but sadly no more wise, and humans far more bestial until it became impossible to tell if such creatures started life as animal or man.
Those descendants of the islands original population are the 'broken ones' I was referring to. They are dangerous, but for the most part not malicious, they are far smarter than any normal animal, but by and large they tend to have the mindset similar to a child's.
Over the many years I've managed to come to something of an understanding with them. I will do what I can to pull thorns from paws, patch wounded pelts, and otherwise offer them some small amount of help. In return, they have realized that to attack me would be an act of baseless cruelty bringing naught but suffering upon them in the long run.
As long as you're traveling with me you should be equally safe." Doctor Fran explained.
Before Alexander could offer any more questions all of a sudden Florence was at his side and tugging on his shoulder forcefully.
"We need to talk.." She whispered to him in Forfarian figuring the the official language of Forlorn (and just about nowhere else) would be obscure enough that it would be nothing but gibberish in Doctor Fran's ears.
Alexander turned a pained gaze upon the groups newest acquaintance.
"Just a moment Doctor, something has come up." He and Florence slowed their pace and before long they were surely out of earshot of not just Doctor Fran but probably the rest of the group as well.
"This jungle, I didn't notice when we were on the beach, but.. it's wrong." Florence warned him.
Alexander instantly began to look just about every which way except at the dryad, clearly suspecting that he might be ambushed at any moment.
"Wrong how? Evil treants, some sort of foul curse?" He inquired his green eye shifting wildly about all the while.
"Nothing that obvious, but look where I'm pointing what do you see?" Florence asked while gesturing towards one very tall tree.
"A very tall tree?" Alexander guessed, if a tree wasn't currently sprouting thorns or trying to murder him they all tended to look alike to him.
"It's an oak tree Alex, now what does that tell you?" Florence asked.
"That it's an oak tree?" He admitted, feeling quite unsure of where his companion was going with this.
Florence pressed a hand to her head in irritation and turned her eyes downward in exasperation.
"Okay, back on the beach, palm trees. Out here in the interior, oak trees. Oak trees and palm trees within walking distance of one another!
Let me put this in terms you might understand since they have to do with matters military. Falkovnia and Lamordia share a border. On one side of that border you see men in full platemail marching together in square formations armed with pike and crossbows. On the other side you have a much smaller army, probably not even a standing one made of up of people who are unencumbered by armor, fight in a line rather than a block, wield the bayonet and the rifle instead of the sword and the bow.
The two could not possibly any more different. How can two military forces so completely different from one another can exist side by side?" She pointed out.
"Because Vlad Drakov is a fool who somehow managed to bumble his way into control of a nation and has learned less about military tactics than I've forgotten. He seems to come from the school where the most important thing about battles is that there be a staggering number of casualties involved, and if they're on the other side well that's convenient but ultimately unnecessary." Alexander answered.
Florence's head bobbed up and down in agreement, glad to see that they were finally making progress.
"Yes that's right. It takes the direct intervention of a darklord to achieve such a result. Well what is going on in with these trees... it is every bit as dramatic." Florence warned him.
Alexander looked around again and then he shrugged.
"Okay so whoever the darklord of this island is, they have some very strange interests in improbable botanical arrangements. I'll keep that in mind in case it comes in handy later on." He promised her.
"You're a beast." Florence growled in disdain.
"None beastlier." Alexander wore the insult with pride.
While Alexander was having this side discussion Cal had caught the tail end of his original one with Doctor Fran and made his way forward to pick up on it.
"So it to make a long story short, it sounds like you've been stuck on this island for at least two decades. Did you never think about leaving, or is there some sort of evil force keeping you here?" The alchemist inquired.
All of a sudden Doctor Fran spun around and drew himself up to his full height towering over the blond haired adventurer.
"The only force keeping me here is my own conscience. Yes I did in fact originally imagine that it might best to escape this place, but by the time I could have collected enough resources to accomplish such a task, I realized just how deplorable the condition of the island's inhabitants are.
I couldn't bring myself to depart while they still suffered, and I have no intention of leaving the island until I found a way to reverse the horrific plague." The Doctor insisted.
Cal took a step back, and clutched Phoenix a bit more tightly than he really needed to.
"Ah okay... I can respect that. That said, you wouldn't have a problem with other people leaving would you?" He asked tentatively.
The black haired man spun around and started walking again.
"Not in the slightest. I understand that my own personal crusade may be my undoing sadly. The plague has mostly burnt itself out, but only mostly. I'm sad to say that over the years this island has worked its magic upon me as well. If you remain, long enough you may fall victim to it as well..." To prove his point he removed one of his heavy gloves revealing a hand that wasn't so much hairy, as outright furry, and quickly put the glove back on.
"Oh that explains it!" Mirri exclaimed with delighted surprise.
"Explains what?" Doctor Fran asked in confusion as he focused his attention on Mirri for the first time.
Mirri promptly realized that she was probably the only one present who was able to hear someone's heart beat as easily as most people could tell red from blue. The Doctor's heartbeat had been going just a bit too fast, to her it was like seeing someone who had eyes that were not quite level with one another.
Now that she realized he must had some animal in him, she filed that irregular heartbeat away as simply a facet of who he was rather than an unexplained mystery, much like how James' continued to strobe along its merry way like a happy purr, resounding twice for every time Cal, Devi or Alexander's did.
Still she couldn't tell Doctor Fran that.
"I was just wondering how you could have been clumsy enough to squash so many berries against so many different parts of your outfit, but I just now realized you must be a painter." She explained, employing all the classic tricks of misdirection from correct emotional tone in her voice, to proper muscle control of expression, to making sure to look the person deep in the eye (demi-humans of every kind were trained to trust those who could look them in the eye) and maybe just a slight sprinkling of vampiric charm gaze.
Whether it was one particular ingredient in that mixture (probably that last one), all of them together being greater than their individual parts, or Doctor Fran being something of a soft sell he, bought her words hook line and sinker.
"Oh yes, being a doctor is my craft and true calling, but I find painting a most relaxing and enjoyable hobby. Tell me are you a student of the art as well dear lady?" He boasted, clearly every bit as interested in discussing painting as James normally would be to talk one's ear off on the finer points of rodent removal.
"I am less a student and more a patron come prop." She admitted.
Doctor Fran's eyes narrowed somewhat as he strove to parse her language and Mirri filled it in for him.
"That means I like to commission others to do artwork, chiefly artwork of which I am the subject." She clarified.
Doctor Fran gave her a very long once over.
"Ah of course! How foolish of me not to have realize it immediately. That said, I'm afraid you have the advantage my dear. I already told you and your companions my name, but I don't think I've heard your's yet." He reflected.
"You can call me Miriam." Mirri answered.
Granted by this point in her unlife Mirri placed her "real" name in much the same category as her love for ponies and dressage growing up, part of who she had been, but not part of who she was.
Still, it was a useful thing to call upon every so often when "Mirri" on its own didn't seem classy enough for the image she wanted to project.
"Ahh of course, hopefully with a face as enchanting as yours I will have no difficulty remembering it. Just don't be surprised if I end up making a mistake now and again as I'm sure Mr. Diamondmaw... no I can tell just from your expression I must have gotten wrong again..." The doctor confessed.
Sure enough, Mirri had buried her face in a gloved hand to hide her chuckle.
"Just a touch. Don't worry too much though, he's been called a lot worse." Mirri offered.
Delphi Vaster waited for her 'father' to come back. She knew that Francis wasn't related to her by blood, but all the same he was the only father she had ever known.
Normally whenever her father went out on his journeys she'd just find some way to amuse herself or focus on her studies while he was out. Not this time though, this time she was waiting by the gate that lead into the estate as enthusiastically as her father's chief servant in all matters menial Orson Arctos.
She'd intended to just wait and wait, and wait, but soon realized that perhaps the best of both worlds might be a better approached and headed off to the estate's miniscule (if understandably so) library to retrieve something to read while she waited.
Orson had a good heart, but even Delphi who had grown up with the huge man (he was even larger than her father) since childhood would be willing to admit that he was far from engaging company. He seemed to be possessed of a character so stoic that he could out-stare a snake, if it weren't for the fact that his eyes tended towards a near permanent squint, though one of tiredness rather than suspicion.
So since she could count on Orson to keep her safe (and though he might look sleepy there was no way he would betray her father's trust by actually drifting off while preforming a task as important as waiting for his return) Delphi buried her nose in a book title "guide to the known world" and wondered if she would ever get to see the ancient manners of Mordent, the extravagant fashions of Dementlieu or have her future read for her by some Vistana mystic!
The chances of that any of those things taking place were remote to say the least though and Delphi was enough of a realist to admit it. What she could hope for however was that father would not return alone form his journey to the beach.
It was not just the stomach churning storm that had struck the island recently but father said that he had seen smoke drifting from the beaches. Unless lighting had struck some part of a ship, lit it on fire, and allowed it to smolder far longer than it should have by all rights, that had to mean there were other people on the island.
Orson was the last person to have been washed up on the island but he'd been fully grown when it had happened and Delphi little more than a child. This time, this time maybe the rocks and seas would be more merciful and there would be more than a single survivor.
It would certainly be nice if there were new people, and she was torn on what gender to wish the survivors might be. On one hand, it felt unnatural (boarding on confusing or horrifying in a few particular instances) to be the only girl/woman on the island.
On the other hand, while she had never asked father his age, it was clear that both he and Orson were into their middle years. It would be nice to have a man more dependable than Felix to count upon if illness or infirmity took them.
All these thoughts and more jumbled around inside her head as she awaited the sound of her father's heavy approaching footsteps in between turning page after page of the already well read tome.
It was a shame to think that unless she was very careful she might wear this book out completely in another few years, in fact it had been falling apart since she laid hands on it, as far back as she could remember it had lacked most of the pages detailing with the world east of Borca.
Perhaps father could convince Felix or Orson (on second though Felix, definitely Felix) to create a copy of what remained for her while the original was still in one piece?
Then she heard the sound she'd been waiting so long for, and shortly there after her father came into view. Sure enough he had brought people with him. Not just a single person, but people! So many people!
Delphi's dark blue eyes swam with amazement as she realized that her father had brought back more people with him than there were previous occupants of his estate! The sheer amazement of such a discovery left Delphi slack jawed for a few moments and unable to think about anything else.
At least not until she saw HIM.
He was wearing the most outlandish outfit that she had ever seen, it was red, but not like the somber demure somewhat faded red of Felix's favored outfit, this was a bright and vibrant shade of the color. Yet for all of the exuberance of his outfit when she looked into large brown eyes, she saw pain.
Not the sort of pain that she had seen in Father's eyes after he had ended up accidentally cutting himself, but a 'deeper' pain than that. The kind of pain that Delphi had to imagine was caused by wounds upon the soul rather than upon the body.
Before she knew it she found herself racing past Orson (who was of course still holding the gate open) to meet them. She managed to make it about two thirds of the way there before she slipped on some uneven ground and began to tumble towards the ground.
She never reached it though, because already he was here for her.
He must have seen her about to fall and raced forward himself, and caught her in his arms.
"Whoops, you almost had a nasty fall there, are you all right?" He consoled her in a voice that showed none of the pain that was present in his eyes.
What a deep primal part of Delphi wanted to say was that she was, now that he was here, but it would never do for her to say something so vapidly romantic, especially in front of her father!
Instead she stuck to simpler and safer topics.
"Yes... I'm fine, I just lost my balance. I should be more careful, my father has warned me that I've been like this ever since I was young. There's something wrong with my 'inner ear', it can make me a little unsteady if I walk, a lot if I try to run. My name is Delphi Vaster by the way, who are you?" She asked the hansom young man in bright red.
"James Firecat." He answered, a name as dashing as his outfit.
End Chapter.
FN: Really not much to say about this one.
Well I did originally plan for it to be a bit longer, but then I realized that honestly I was never going to find a better line to go out on than the one that went with James introducing himself so I decided to just quit while I was ahead.
When the next chapter goes up, expect it to also be accompanied by the first of hopefully many Monster Party Side Stories, one chapter long "stories" that will give us some insight into our protagonists histories...