Sorry the update took longer than usual. Needed a break from writing on Saturday, in a car all day on Sunday, back in classes after a short Thanksgiving break, and then got absorbed teaching my roommate to play Final Fantasy XII. She has trouble understanding the map. Though she thinks the graphics are pretty and agrees with me that Vayne is a manipulative posturing bastard (What was the term she used? Faggot, I think.) and the main character isn't cute enough.
Rhino600: Addiction level Rising! If I was really arrogant I'd try to make that into a clichéd "it's over 9000" joke. Addiction level probably isn't that high yet...working on it. Let's see if this chapter doesn't give you even more reasons to look forward to future chapters.
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Chapter 18: Story Time and a Secret Talk
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The way to Dahngrest was mostly through a forest, which meant we were slowed down a lot by trees. And slowed down even further by monsters which we didn't see coming because of all the vegetation in the way. I amused myself by naming the giant monster turtles we fought. "The last ones were Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo. So this one is named Donatello!"
"Just where are you getting these names from?"
"They, uh, just sound right!"
"What about that one behind you?" Yuri asked casually while cutting down a feathered lizard thing.
"Wha-shit! Pierce!" I stabbed both daggers through the leathery skin of a giant turtle that had been about to bite my shoulder. "Tell me about these things sooner, Yuri!"
A few minutes later I posed triumphantly with a boot on the turtle's head. It was the first time I'd landed the killing blow on one of the big beasties. I had tried out a combination of Pierce and Afterimage (Piercing Afterimage, I didn't try too hard with that name) by slashing with the dao in my right hand and stabbing with the dagger in my left.
"I shalt name thee, Tortuga!" Having run out of mutated turtle ninjas to name it after, I'd chosen the stuffed turtle plushie my roommate used as a pillow. I think it was Spanish, but she assured me it meant "turtle."
"Tor...tuga?" Karol looked at the turtle under my foot, "Somehow that seems different from your other names."
"Yes, I haven't heard of a name like that before either. Not even in any of the castle's books."
"You just made that one up, didn't you?"
"I swear on my braid," I tugged the plaited brown hair hanging in front of my ear, "I did not."
"...You just keep getting weirder."
"Thank you." I beamed at Rita. She just spun away and moved ahead to walk with Estelle. Yuri was at the head of the group (probably smirking,) with Repede trotting a little ahead to sniff out any monsters trying to ambush us. Karol walked a bit ahead of me, looking around as if afraid a monster would attack us from behind any moment.
I stared at the ground as I walked, trying not to trip over roots or half buried rocks in the forest floor, and let my mind wander. Apparently I zoned out enough that I missed it when everyone else started a conversation.
"Hey Letha, you're quiet today."
"I like being quiet. It keeps people from hearing all the insane thoughts going through my head." I looked up at the sky, "Come to think of it, I tend to sneak up on people without even meaning to. Or they'll think I'm not even in the room sometimes and accidentally step on my feet."
"Yeah, you could fall down a hole or wander off again and we wouldn't even notice you were gone." Yuri had a serious face, but his voice had that somewhat flippant tone it often had when he was trying to scare Karol. "Then you'd get lost and wander around these woods for days while fighting monsters all alone."
"That's terrible! Letha, talk more so you don't get separated!" Someone wants me to talk more. Only my teachers ever say that.
I scratched my head a bit, "Well, that's a shame, it sounded like an adventure. But if you want me to talk, I could tell a story."
Estelle perked up and Karol looked at me curiously, "What kind of story?"
Considering, I looked up at the trees above me. "Mmm, how about 'The Boy Who Drew Cats'? It's a fairy tale I remember hearing when I was younger." When I was in elementary school my art teacher would play music and tapes of people reading stories while we worked. It had irritated me that class had ended before that particular tape had ended, so I had remembered it years later and looked it up on the internet. I snorted quietly, there'd been a boy in that class who would hiss and call me devil spawn. I would just laugh and return his insults with interest.
...I used to remember his name.
"So how does it go?"
I shook my head slightly to clear the depressing thought and focus on the story. "Let's see..." Thinking quietly, I ran through the story's main points. "Long ago, in a far off land," I think this story originated in Japan, "there was a boy from a family of farmers. He was the youngest son, and not as strong as his older brothers, so he couldn't help his father in the field. Nor was he any good at chores, so he couldn't help his sisters and mother in the house. All he knew how to do, was draw cats.
"Wanting a future for their child, the boy's parents sent him to a temple to learn to be a priest. His mother gave him one piece of advice before he left. She said, 'You are a small child. Keep to small places, and you will be safe'."
"Safe from what?"
I shrugged at Karol, "She didn't know any danger in particular he'd have to be safe from. More like a piece of superstition or an old wives tale." I shrugged again. "It's a fairy tale, not everything has to make sense.
"Moving on with the story then. He was a bright child, so the priests were pleased by his progress in his studies. Except for one thing: he was always drawing cats. In the margins of scrolls he read, on clothes he was supposed to wash, everything. He just couldn't help himself.
I stopped again for a moment. "Umm, so one day the head priest went to talk to the boy. He said, 'I'm sorry my child, but we cannot keep you here any more. You'll have to return home'."
"Just because he liked to draw cats? That doesn't make sense."
"Well, Rita, imagine you found an important book about blastia but you couldn't read it because the pages were covered in doodles?"
"I'd kill the freak who did that!" I raised an eyebrow at her, "Okay, I get your point."
"Hmm. So, the boy was turned out, though the priests weren't cruel so they gave him enough money and food to get home. But the boy was too ashamed to return and tell his family that he'd failed. So instead he decided to go find another village, and join the temple there."
"Wait, what about monsters? Wouldn't it be too dangerous to travel alone?"
I shook my head at Yuri. "Nah, this was in a land where monsters were very uncommon. If you were careful and stayed on the roads you could usually travel safely. The villages didn't need barriers either, because attacks were rare." Well, more or less. There were dangerous animals and bandits back then, but animals didn't actually seek humans out or attack villages unless they had no food left or felt threatened. Humans are a different story though.
I sighed and looked up again. "That being said, when the boy reached the next village he discovered that it had been entirely abandoned. It looked like everyone had left, not even bringing anything with them, as if they'd been fleeing something.
"It was getting dark, so he decided to stay in the empty temple for the night. He found remains from an old fire, but he couldn't get it lit again. Looking at the left over sticks of burnt wood, he had an idea. Holding it like a pencil, he pulled it across the wall, and discovered the charcoal drew a thick, dark line. Until the rest of the daylight was gone, the boy happily drew cats over all the walls.
"When he couldn't see anymore, he lay down to go to sleep. But before he fell asleep he remembered his mother's words. 'You are small, keep to small places.' So he found a cupboard to sleep in."
"What? Why?"
I shrugged again. "Don't question plot devices, Ace."
"What are those?"
"Things that happen in order to move the story along." I looked around to see if anyone else had a question before continuing. "Right, so, in the middle of the night the boy woke up at the sound of something moving around in the main room he'd been in before. He was afraid to open the door to see what it was, but it sounded like something was sniffing around and coming closer to his cupboard." I noted how Rita had started to look a bit spooked.
"Shivering in fear, the boy sat and listened to the thing outside coming closer. Suddenly, there was the sound of rumbling growls and roars, followed by pained shrieks that didn't sound quite human." The tough mage gave a strangled squeak.
"Wh-what was that?" Karol looked around wildly, not realizing it had been Rita.
"Maybe that noise came from the same thing behind the door in Letha's story." I grinned at Yuri.
"R-really?"
"Of course not! It's just a story, it's not real!"
"You can't really know that when I haven't even told you what it was." Rita's mouth snapped shut and she paled slightly. "Uhh, where was I?"
"Growls and screams from outside the boy's cupboard." Estelle said eagerly.
"Riiight. So, the boy was even more terrified then before. Finally, the noises stopped and there was only silence. Eventually the boy fell asleep and didn't hear anything else for the rest of the night.
"In the morning he woke up and slowly opened the door. Outside, there was the mangled corpse of a terrible monster, a goblin. Nothing else about the room had changed, except the boy's cat drawings on the walls. Now their mouths were smeared red with blood."
"So the cats came to life and killed the monster, is that it?" Yuri clarified.
"That's what the story leads us to believe, yes."
"But that's not possible!"
"Plot device!" I reminded Rita. "And there's a little more.
"The boy had no way of knowing this, but the rat-like goblin had been terrorizing the village and had killed all the priests before everyone else ran away. When they found out the goblin had been killed the villagers would be free to return to their homes.
"As for the boy, he moved on and eventually made a living for himself as an artist. When he had a family of his own he drew pictures of cats to protect his son, as they had protected him."
"So the moral of the story is that no talents are useless, right?"
I nodded at the princess. "Something like that, and if you keep searching you'll find where you fit into the world. The boy's talent was drawing, so his calling in life was to become an artist."
"Huh. Not a bad story," Yuri said approvingly. Right, he's had talks with Estelle about just this sort of thing.
"I bet the best part was that you didn't have to read the actual book." I said with a grin.
Karol laughed, "That sounds like Yuri alright!"
I smiled and looked around. Karol seemed to have liked the story, as had Estelle, though Rita looked rather pale still. Repede...well, he might have understood, but it was a story starring cats. Yuri had a glint in his eye, and I figured he'd probably try to use the story to scare the younger kids with another prank.
'Telling a story means you care, being told a story means you are cared for.' Whoever said that, I couldn't remember, but with my hopes to be a writer it had struck a chord in me. Moments like this made me feel good.
"Where'd you learn a story like that?" Estelle asked.
"Umm, my aunt had a large and interesting collection of books... When it comes to remembering facts like Estelle and Rita do, I'm not that great, but I always had a special love for stories like that one."
"Do you remember any more?"
"Loads, but..."
"Some other time," Yuri cut in as he tossed his sword sheath to the side to attack a screwed up looking fluffy green owl. "And I think you need to come up with another name." He nodded towards another giant turtle that came crashing through the trees.
"Ummm, Ricardo!" No reason at all...
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Later that night I walked further into the trees for a bit of privacy (and thank God the others were no longer insisting on knowing what I was doing every time). I picked my way through fairly easily thanks to a large and bright moon, trying to find a nice spot where I could feel decently alone without losing track of the campfire where Yuri was cooking dinner.
"You are surprisingly adept at lying."
"Eeep!" I squeaked loudly (and wanted to die of embarrassment) and practically punched Nevi in the face at his sudden appearance.
"Letha? Are you alright?" I heard Estelle call.
"Fine! Fine, I just slipped on some wet leaves!" I called back.
"Which illustrates my point..." Nevi smirked. His pale blond hair seemed to gleam in the moonlight. Damn it for actually looking pretty... Away with that thought!
"Har har. What do you want? Are you and your buddy Alastor taking turns screwing up my life so you can laugh at me?" Nevi stiffened and he grabbed me by the shoulders (he had to reach up a bit to do it).
"You met Alastor? When? Where?"
"A-a few days ago. Back in Nor Harbor, and then again when we were in Caer Bocram."
"What did he tell you?" the smaller fairy was staring me intently in the eyes, as if daring me to try and lie. It was unnerving.
"Uh, he-he said that I was aptly named. 'Forgetfulness'..." That was the heaviest issue on my mind at the time, even if I tried to tell myself that it was pointless to worry about when I couldn't do anything. "And he also had more pieces of the heirloom you're looking for. He had three that I saw..." Wait, think about this. Nevi said it was misplaced, but it was probably stolen. If he's so worked up about that Alastor guy, then- "-He's the one who stole it, isn't he? Alastor stole that heirloom and broke it into pieces for some reason."
Nevi's expression showed confusion for a fraction of a second before he recovered his typical dignified and superior look. "Yes, it was him. He must have shown himself to you as a way of mocking me and my associates. Another reason you were selected for this task was your familiarity with some of the forgotten older legends. We were hoping it wouldn't be as easy for our enemy to mislead you."
...I don't like this. Something feels wrong, and Nevi confirmed what I said too easily. I'd expect him to try and mislead me so he can keep me under control. Instead he's volunteering more information without a fuss... I wasn't sure what to believe anymore. Maybe I was thinking about it too much, but I had no reason to actually trust everything Nevi told me. My left hand clenched slightly. To him I'm just a tool, and this mark is like a cattle brand identifying me as his.
"What else did he tell you?"
"Nothing, that's all. Yuri and the others showed up, and it seemed like he didn't want to stick around after that. He just tried to psych them out a bit." Whatever Sophia's case of notes was about, there was no reason to tell Nevi about it if he didn't see me as an equal to be treated with respect and trust.
"Hnph. If that's all then..." He turned away from me, and just as a few golden sparkles started to announce his departure-
"Now hold on there!"
-I grabbed him by the pseudo-monarch butterfly wings. The golden sparks turned red and yellow, flying off in all in directions and swirling away like a startled flock of birds. And Nevi actually squawked.
"Unhand me!" He gnashed his teeth at me. "What is it now?"
"I want you to tell me why I'm forgetting things!" I jabbed a finger at his chest, keeping the other gripped tightly to a delicate wing. "If you don't tell me now then so help me, I will rip your wings off and use them to make kites!" Oh, his face kept switching between furious red and horrified white for a full minute at that.
Getting impatient, I started tugging on his wing a bit. "Fine, I admit I was not expecting you to suffer any memory loss. It is most likely a side effect of the spell I used to bring you here, but I cannot say for sure." I tugged a little harder, "I will of course be looking into the matter, and researching methods for reversing the side effects!" He hurriedly assured me. Feeling I shouldn't push my luck, I let go of his wing.
The fairy man quickly stepped out my reach, and fluttered his wings a bit as if to make sure they still worked. Glaring at me, he wasn't satisfied to leave while I still had the psychological advantage of having won. "It's no wonder your comrades feel the need to keep an eye on you. One cannot trust you enough to turn one's back on you."
"It's not my fault! What else can I tell them but lies?"
"Why are you so convinced that the truth is not an option?" I stared at Nevi, and it seemed he at least party understood my shock. "Of course I will not allow you to tell anyone about my people or the heirloom, but I could hardly care less if you told them the rest of the story. If it allowed you to locate the pieces faster, I would have no reason to object."
"You're either not thinking enough about what would happen, or really don't care about what happens to me." He quirked an eyebrow and I hurried to add, "I don't need to hear which.
"I can't tell them the truth about where I'm from, they'd never believe me! Not yet at least, they'd think I went even deeper off the end than that loony Zagi! And even then I definitely can never tell them about the game! No one wants to hear something like that, and anyone who didn't suffer some identity crisis or go into major denial would chase me down in order to use me!" Like you guys did.
"Hnph. It matters not at all to me. Do as you wish." And Nevi poofed away again.
"...I wish I'd pulled his wings harder." Then I hurried back to the camp before the others suspected I'd run off again.
x x x
"This is Dahngrest, my hometown." Karol swept his arms open wide, inviting us to take a good look at the city behind him.
"Looks like a pretty lively place," Yuri observed.
"Well, it's the second largest city after the imperial capital," the boy informed us, pride evident in his voice. "It's run entirely by the guilds."
"I'd thought it would be more dark and dank, you know? Like a den of villains." A woman walked by while carrying a bouquet of flowers, providing an ironic contrast to Yuri's confessed expectations.
"That's just a prejudice people have about the guilds."
"I'm sure the bad reputation of the Blood Alliance is to blame for that."
I nodded at Estelle's words. "Besides, it's not like everyone in a given group will be exactly the same. There's bound to be both good and bad people in and out of the guilds."
"Yeah. Jeez, Yuri. You make it sound like I'm a villain." Haha, the nefarious Mad Doctor Karol!
"If you're a villain, what does that make him?" Rita pointed at Yuri while looking at the rest of us.
"Point taken," the former bounty target conceded. "So, how should we go about tracking down Barbos?"
"...Wanted posters?" I couldn't resist. And Yuri groaned into his hand at my suggestion.
Karol rescued him. "The best way is probably to stop by the Union and check there."
Estelle closed her eyes and went into "recital mode," "The Union. A guild collective run by the five so-called 'master guilds.' ...Right?"
"Yeah. The Union also serves as the city's government."
I hummed a little, "From what I've heard, isn't it more like Altosk calls all the shots?"
"That's because everyone in all the guilds looks up to The Don." Eheheh, "The Don" always reminds me of the first season of "Last Comic Standing." Most of the participants looked up to one guy and his strategies, so they called him The Don. And he was always ironing his laundry whenever on camera.
Not interested in hearing about the city's government, Rita placed one hand on her hip and waved the other out to draw our attention. "But how is this gonna work? Isn't Barbos' Blood Alliance one of the five master guilds?"
"Which means if we lay a hand on him, we'll be picking a fight with the Union as well."
I stopped following at that point, humming a snatch of music while I looked around and waited for the others to settle on trying to find The Don and getting an audience. When they started walking my feet followed on autopilot.
Then we ran into some rough looking men who began ragging on Karol for being passed around the guilds. "So are you the latest guild to take him in? You could do a lot better than that loser!" Poor Karol looked like he wanted to vanish into a dark hole in the ground.
"All this kid can brag about is the number of guilds he's joined! Oh, right, that's a bad thing."
Yuri narrowed his eyes, and then in a loud aside to Karol asked, "Are these your friends, Karol?" Then he topped it off by throwing their own words back at them. "You could do a lot better than these losers."
"Wh-what did you say?" One of them spluttered, and the other looked like he wanted to smash Yuri's head in with his (oversized) hammer.
"Right, of course you didn't stick around in any of those guilds. If this is the best they had to offer, you're way out of their league!" Ah, that felt good. Really, Karol's experience in so many different guilds serves him well. No experience is a wasted experience, just another chance to learn.
"You mouthy broad!" Haa, reminds me of the English class when one of the guys kept laughing every time the teacher mentioned "broadsheets."
Estelle spread her feet and swung a hand up to point dramatically at them. "Such undignified men!"
"Shut up!"
"You sure have a way of saying things. I mean, you're right, but..." Rita, are you trying to help or not?
"Yeah, you just keep talking..." As much as the brutes looked like they wanted to teach us a lesson, they had their priorities straight. The bell began ringing an alarm, and barely a second after they looked up in surprise, "Damn it... They're back again." They had their weapons out and were off running.
"What's that sound?" Rita asked us.
"The alarm... Monsters are here." Karol looked in the direction the men had left in. Though he didn't seem overly concerned.
"Monsters? ...Wait, is this shaking the monster's footsteps...?" I looked Estelle in surprise, then knelt down to place a hand on the ground. Huh, actually I can feel some vibration from the ground. Wonder why I didn't notice...maybe because I got used to the construction going on next door to my house since last summer?
"If so, they've brought quite an army," Yuri said grimly.
"Yeah, but don't worry," Karol tried to reassure us, confident in his hometown. "Even if there have been a lot of monsters around here lately... Our barrier here is strong, and it's never been broken before. And the guilds take care of the monsters outside the barrier."
As if on cue, there was a flash of light that drew our gazes upwards. We saw bolts of electricity flicker among the rings of the barrier, and then with one last bright flash it fizzled out.
"...There's a reason they say 'there's a first time for everything'," I grumbled.
"...Huh? Oh crap!" Haa, the only thing funnier I've ever heard Karol say (technically I haven't actually heard it) is when he tells Rita "you suck!" Right, not a time to think about that, time to be serious and kill things.
"The barrier...disappeared...?" Estelle sounded like she didn't believe it despite having seen the barrier burn out with her own eyes.
Rita was nearly in hysterics, "What the hell is going on? The monsters are going to get inside!" Oh, yeah, she must have been shocked that a blastia could have failed.
"Damn it, why do things like this always happen to me, no matter where I go?"
Rita spun to Yuri with an accusing glare. "You gotta be cursed."
"...Maybe."
"Yuri, we have to go stop the monsters!" Seeing where this was going, I'd already pulled my daggers, figuring I'd be able to move faster with them than with my dao. I ran with the others toward the city edge, where we could already hear people screaming.
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Some plot important things, mostly random stuff to lighten the mood from the previous chapters. Letha likes fairy tales, especially the older more original versions. Grimms beat Disney hands down! (No, that was not a Grimm fairy tale, and I'm not sure if it's really from Japan or not.)
I'll probably try putting up a poll within a few chapters. We're getting closer to the end of the aque-blastia-recovery-mission part of the story, and then we'll be moving on to the actual Brave Vesperia as a guild. I want to know what side quests and jobs people are interested in seeing (besides ones required for the story) and start thinking about working them in.
First on the agenda will be the guard seduction scene! I'll let my readers and reviewers choose who gets chosen to dress up sexy and distract the guard! Estelle, Judith, and Karol are options since the game allows it, but I will also include Letha and Yuri in the choices! PLUS! How I write that scene will be affected by all the votes! For example, if there's a close second then the second most popular will almost be selected but turn it around or something. (*Gasp* What if there's a tie! That would be fuuuun!)