What? No, they didn't steal it. Don't joke with me.
"He couldn't have stolen i-" I quickly feel at my side for Draiotoll.
What... It... isn't... THERE!
"Yeah, he did." Jafray stares at me.
...
"I guess we will have to get it back. Does anyone in town know about where the brigand is from?" I ask them.
"Well, he isn't from here, and the only other place is an abandoned fort near here. Or at least, it WAS abandoned. People say that some brigands took residence in there. The group is called the Borderline Bandits." Borderline Bandits? That somehow sounds clever and menacing at the same time. The menacing part, I have no idea how.
Well, I guess we aren't going to the camp in the desert, which I don't mind one bit.
"There is one problem, however." Calina tells me. "You need some training with a sword." ... Of course I need that. I have no real idea why, but I always expect myself to be good with all things sword-related. Video game, or not. It's pathetic, actually.
"Sounds good to me, though it's not like I've ever used a sword before."' Maybe I can pull a Donnel and just happen to know how to use it? No- Donnel technically could already use the weapons, he just couldn't fight.
"We still have a couple of hours before we go to the tavern. We can train for now." Jafray explains.
"What? Tavern?" What for?
"That's where we're looking for mercenaries. The innkeeper says that there is a small group of mercenaries staying at the inn. Chances are, they'll be hanging at the tavern tonight." Jafray explains more. I can see the logic in that, but there's still a chance that the mercenaries are leaving today. That would be a pain, since those mercenaries are probably some of the characters in my story.
We walk into a small clearing in the forest. Obviously, they saw how terrible I was at fighting, so we decided that I should get some training from the both of them. Did I mention that both of them are a few thousand times better than me? Yeah, they have to be at least level ten.
It is then, that Jafray tosses me his sword.
"If you want to improve, we need to see your skills first." Calina says. She pulls out her blade, pointing it in my direction.
"Do you even have any armor?" I ask her. I know that my cloak has a sort of chainmail sewed into it. Yeah, it's heavy, but it provides more than enough protection.
Calina pulls up her shirt sleeve, revealing some chainmail. Good, I can take this seriously.
"On the count of three, we start," Jafray lifts up his hand.
"One..." I lift up the sword that Jafray gave me, pointing it at Calina.
"Two..." Calina grins at me, probably imagining a devious plan.
"Three!"
This can't be too-
WAUGH!
... She is pointing her sword at me neck.
"You lost already?" she put a fake look of pity on her face. "For a boy, you sure can't fight very well."
Ugh- Don't get me started.
"Honestly, I've never used a sword before. Ever." They both turn towards me, actually surprised. "What? I'm a blacksmith's son, not a warrior."
"Ugh, this is going to take longer than I thought. Hopefully this won't hurt, much." she giggles as she swings her sword at me.
Well, that could have gone worse. After about three hours, I eventually hit her a couple of times, showing that I'm actually getting some sort of improvement in there.
So now we're heading towards the inn to meet up with that mercenary group, if they are still there.
"So, do you think that we'll have enough money?" I turn towards Jafray, while walking backwards.
"Dunno. Maybe we'll get lucky and it will be cheap. We could join them too, if we want." he responds.
Calina's face brightens up. "Why not? I doubt Mom and Dad would be against it. They'd like it more than thievery."
Jafray turns towards Calina, obviously aggravated. "What were we supposed to do?! I had to feed you! Thievery was the only way, after Mom and Dad died!"
I quietly stand by them. I'm just trying not to say anything stupid. Seriously, that is another of my fatal flaws. I try to ease the mood with a joke, only to completely ruin it and make the mood even more tense.
"Forget it, Jafray." she groans. "We can talk about this later.
We set off towards the tavern, none of us talking for pretty much the entire walk. Honestly, I can easily put up with the quiet. Not too shabby, I guess.
We enter the surprisingly roomy building, and (actually not surprisingly,) it is a MESS in here. There is mostly just a few men who had gotten drunk, and a few others that are just sitting around.
"Which ones are the mercenaries?" I ask them.
"We'll have to ask, I guess." Calina explains.
Considering that I'm pretty sure I know who the people are supposed to be, I may as well just look for them. There's just two, as far as I know. Perhaps three or four, if things are different.
I only have two clues though: Gorge and Niro.
Those are both of the men that I created, technically, and I'll just have to look for the right details.
Gorge is fat, (hence the name, Gorge) while Niro is a bit tall, with long, smooth black hair. Did I ever mention that I made an Awakening play through based around Niro? Ah, of course I didn't.
No, just focus, and look.
Let's see, he has blonde ha- That's a woman... Oops..? Simple mistake.
"Excuse me, are by some chance a mercenary?" I ask a nearby man.
"Nah, I'm just a farmer." ... He looks a bit different, up close, actually.
Calina and Jafray are asking around at the other side of the building, though they don't know what they look li-
Bingo! I see a blonde-haired man over there, and someone who looks like Niro. At least, he does feature-wise. There is a third person over there too, I guess someone that I forgot about, or just never really designed.
I slowly walk towards them, stepping over small piles of drunken men. Actually, there are A LOT of guys in here. The town isn't even that big, either, Which is strange.
I slowly walk in front of their table, before asking them.
"Are you guys mercenaries, by any chance?"
All three of them turn towards me.
"Yeah, of course we-" Gorge tries to explain.
"Hold on a second, you look familiar." the third person looks over at me. Actually, he looks a bit familiar to me, as well. He actually has blonde hair similiar to Gorge's but a bit shorter and- WAIT... WAIT! I SEE IT!
"No way." he stares at me, jaw dropped far enough for me to stick Draiotoll in his mouth, if I still had it.
"Geoff." I mutter under my breath.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he asks me. OH THANK YOU JEREMIAH! Of all Self-Insert cliches you could have bestowed upon me, I am so glad that you picked this one.
No problem. You know what? For now, I'm not mad that you struck me with lightning. It's just good that you brought my best friend here.
Actually, I'm serious. Geoff is the definition of good friend. Aside from the fact I have a lot in common with him, I'm pretty sure that if I got in a fight, he would be the first to jump in and help. And I'm not just saying that because he actually told me that before.
Calina and Jafray seem to have noticed that I've found the mercenaries, and are heading over here to check things out.
"So I'm assuming that you found them?" they both ask me.
"Yeah, but I need to talk to him for a few minutes, so can you explain to them what we are trying to do?" I point to Geoff, then drag him outside.
"Alan, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!" he asks me as we get outside of everyone's hearing range.
"Geoff, I know that this sounds crazy, but we've been dropped into a story that I wrote, which conveniently happens to be in a video game." I explain.
His jaw drops farther than I thought was humanly possible. "What? That's just... Actually, I think that explains something here."
"Huh, what do you mean?" I ask him.
He stays silent for a couple of seconds, before asking me: "Has a man named Jeremiah been talking to you, too?"
...
"Any ounce of doubt that you weren't Geoff, which I had is now gone. That isn't coincidence, that's for sure." I reach over and give him a hug, which he immediately tries to escape. I've never actually hugged him before, so... Eh.
"Alan, lay off the hugs. There are people out here, you know." ... Valid Point. And I'm about as afraid of criticism as he is, or isn't. I'm not sure myself. "By the way, you look older." he tells me. Yup, stating the obvious, like always.
"Well you do too." I respond, letting go of him.
He paces around for a few seconds before finally thinking of another thing to ask me. "Why were you looking for a mercenary group, anyways?"
I'm actually prepared to ask him why he's in a mercenary group in the first place, but I'll just have to answer him first.
"Well, you remember how I said I was in a story?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I'm the main character of it. I was thrown into the Plegian jail... because I'm the descendant of their enemy, or something along the lines of that. Well, I happened to have a special blade that was stolen from me after a fight with a brigand, earlier. By the way, you are going to have to call me Ravel for a while."
"Hold on, that was YOU?! You were terrible at that, 'Ravel'." Geoff gets down on his knees, laughing. "You didn't even land a hit on him, let alone not get owned."
"SHADDAP! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT! Just, let's go inside, then- Wait, I almost forgot! Why are you in a mercenary group anyways?" I ask him.
He gets back up, acting like he never even went down. "I just woke up one day, I could fight. I just decided to join a mercenary group, and they were the only ones that would take me. It almost felt like it's what I was supposed to do." Huh. So he could fight, but I can't?
Jeremiah, explain.
Eh, I'll do it tonight. I'm on my lunch break. At Six o'clock? Dinner, maybe. But this? No.
"Ugh, let's go, Geoff." I walk back into the tavern, dragging Geoff with me.
After a surprisingly short conversation when we entered, we all decided to go meet up outside the fort. Apparently Calina and Jafray sorted things out relatively quickly, thus allowing us to leave in a short time.
So in other words, we've pretty much joined them, by now.
We had to grab a bit of supplies before we left, and Niro had to feed his Wyvern, Rysor. Yeah, he's a Wyvern Rider, and Gorge is a Knight.
Geoff is a mercenary, and even ended up painting his shield to look like the Hylian Shield.
Yeah, he's a LoZ fan. A pretty big one, at that. I'm actually decently surprised that he didn't become a wandering hero.
So yeah, as of now, we are all walking through the forest in order to get to the fort. It seems that we are right around the border of Ylisse and Plegia, and thus earning the nickname 'Borderline Bandits' for our enemy.
"So, are we there yet?" Jafray asks everyone.
"No, it didn't work with me, it so it won't work for you." I glare at him. "Maybe if you keep asking, you'll get struck by lightning."
Obviously, everyone had heard the story by now, so they just proceeded to try and hide their laughs.
"Gah, I'm hungry!" Gorge yells.
"Ssh! You'll give away our position, oaf!" Niro screams back at him. Apparently he is an expert in tracking, and memorizing locations, and such. As far as I know, Rysor may understand it as well as he does.
"Hey, what was that?!" I hear a few voices off in the distance.
"Dammit Gorge!" Geoff facepalms. "You can have food later! Now, it's time to fight!"
Yeah, I went there. I implemented the friend being inserted cliche.
No harm really done though, just gives me extra plot possibilities. Also, I wrote this ENTIRE chapter in a 24 hour period.
Wasn't nonstop though, just done in about two/three hours. Same as yesterday's.
Still, NOT A SINGLE REVIEW? SERIOUSLY?
I'm asking myself if people are just being lazy, or are they actually trying to bother me.
No, this story won't be that good until I get some advice. I don't care. It could be one letter, but as long as I have something to work on, I'm fine with it.