Hey there you guys! Sorry for updating chapter 10 for a lot longer. But to make up for the last chapter's really short story, I'm making this chapter severely longer. About 2 new characters and a new magic at work! Though it may still have mistakes, please enjoy!
Chapter 10: Time to Shine!
Jester woke up last night with a shocking face. He couldn't thought of what happened last night. He knew that the hissing is a voice of a dragon. Yet he couldn't be so sure now as he wakes up from the nightmare he is having. He tries to go back to sleep so that he would think this through in the morning instead of rushing himself to panic.
Jane and Jester now have rested last night and is ready to start fresh in the village. They managed to find a hidden clue and the "ghost" that has been terrorizing the calm village last night. Jester tries to read the inscription on the scroll that could lead to several hints as to where the legendary hero is. Their accommodations only last until tomorrow since they will start to put budget prices on Inns. So, they should find out that scroll's meaning within today, or they will have no lead as to where they will go next.
"Hmm." Jester, who is still a little perplexed about the incident yesterday, seems to be thinking of how the clues work out. "A knight of brave soul and its location is said after the word but here.. Perhaps it is referring to a person that may know the hero's resting place." He deduce.
Jane and Dragon just looked oblivious as to what happened to him last night. But the two can understand the efforts Jester is doing to save Kippernium. Despite the fact that Jane doesn't want to let her feeling get through to anyone due to her knight training, Jane can't help but feeling, that a blush within her cheeks shown into her face that directly answers her desires, as to be glad that her only best human friend is still alive with her together. Dragon is one thing to consider because of their unbreakable friendship, but Jester has been giving advice longer than even Gunther does. She just keep on wandering around in the path of love. And that she can only decide one single path, either Jester, Gunther or Dragon. Those two males and a dragon had fallen head over heels for such an adventurous girl has made Jane feel inconsistent to telling them the truth as to whom she is fallen in love with. She still staggers about the subject as the party tries to go door-to-door, finding out anything about the ghost's whereabouts and how did the "ghost" manage to get that scroll. It takes them to a house in the middle of the forest. Beyond the border of Kippernium by just a few meters, they manage to reach and enter the simple house. Seems like they almost wandered off into a strange, destined place than searching for their goals. Though it turns out that there is an old man that resides there. He introduced them and lets the party enter his humble home. (Except Dragon, who can't even fit through the doors.)
"So, what can I do you for? Usually Jesters don't wander around into little villages like this. Nor even dragons and a lady with a very wild snare there." The old man asks.
"Well." Jane paused afterwards for awhile before continuing. "We happen to be in the neighborhood and we would like to know what this strange scroll means." She asked Jester to pull out the sheeted paper that he kept the night before. Then after the old man reads the scroll, he seemed to give out a surprising and yet also calming demeanor.
"Ah! I can see what this is! I've seen this astonishingly crafted writing back when I was young. Around 47 years ago to be precise! Ahh..it takes me back to the days as a friend of him in the Gypsies territory." The old bearded man exclaimed.
"So can you tell us what it is?" Jester asked, not noticing the Gypsy in his sentence.
"Yes, I believe I could." The old man answered.
"Let's see. Where to begin." He silently goes into a deep thought.
"Oh right! This takes us back to about 48 years ago. One year before the event that sealed the hero!" He said in a rather surprising tone.
"At that time, the hero was trying to look for something, which I had no idea what. The hero happened to stumble upon the cavern of Aclesia, a newly discovered cave that no one dared to enter. He boldly entered anyway, because it was a reason that he could not refuse. And that reason is related to his lady." Jane stopped as he said that.
"Wait, what lady?" Jane asked
"Oh, so you didn't know. The hero, Draugit, has a beautiful groom named Clarissa. She is portrayed as a famous and beautiful lady that is also widely known in the country. The hero fell in love with her at first sight! Sadly, she disappeared a month before their wedding. He was so lost that he almost went berserk! And there's also his friend..." The old man answered as Jane is full of thought. Who knew that the hero can fall in love. Seems too awkward for her to understand because she is also at the same thought as well.
"Draugit? I thought his name was Draugat?" Jester interrupted.
"Well, I didn't spell it incorrectly. Where do you get this information anyways?" The old man asked. Jester then pulled out the Alexandria tournament scroll and the old man reads it. Then he laughs at the scroll with a big and loud voice.
"AHAHAHA! My good friend, this handwriting is quite old. No wonder you mistook the 'A's for the 'I's" The old man laughed again after saying that. IT is true of what he said. The scroll happens to have a smudged 'A' into an 'I'.
"Wow! I guess you didn't notice it, didn't you?" Jane giggled as she said so.
"...Excuse me, but his friend? What are you talking about here? I thought he was described as a lone warrior?" Jester asked again, not wanting to be humiliated by both the old man and Jane any further.
"He is! But that doesn't mean that he doesn't have acquaintances!" The old man suddenly stops laughing and snapped at Jester, to which he apologized afterwards.
"Then what happened next?" asked Jester
The old man paused right about that moment. He seems to be in his thinking pose. Jester and Jane finds it very strange to see why he would think about something. They think of ideas, only to find out nothing in the end.
The old man then answered with a demanding look on his face "Well, I can't just give away all the information without a return favor. I mean, this information I have here is top secret! How do you young squires know of such information in that scroll I may not know, but I am not going to give all my information without that favor!"
Jane just looked really disappointed when he said that while Jester asked as to what favor will they have to do, knowing that it is better to get to the point rather than to ask any further questions.
"A song." The old man said after a brief pause.
"A song?" Jane asked, looking a bit grim on the old man.
"Yes. This here is my old clock. It used to sing me a beautiful melody once. But now it that it is broken, I believe that this old prune won't be able to sing this melody now. Would you please sing it? I would like to hear its beautiful melody one more time.
"Perfect!" Jane thought. She looks at Jester with an intense glare as she does so. Jester manage to intercept the glare and agree with her thoughts. He then asked the old man for the song's previous voice. The old man then hummed the tune. However, his voice croaks like a sad frog that he can't even get the notes right. Jester will have to improvise on that problem. Otherwise, they won't get the rest of the information he has at hand.
Dragon's Perspective
While all this is happening, Dragon gets extremely anxious. Despite the fact that his ears can hear everything, he doesn't seem to hear anything of value to him at all. He got bored right about then and left the house to explore on his own.
"What in the world do those short lives talk about?" Dragon thought as he left with a heavy heart.
He then started to wander around in the green landscape. Dragon, bewildered by the sight of his surroundings, suddenly gets a sense of fear. Because the view have completely changed into a scary hellfire of darkness. The poor Dragon feels like he is in a bridge between the realm of darkness and the real world. Then he realized, he is in an illusion that fades the fabric of reality. He tried to shrug this strange world off, but it is no use. The forces are too much for even Dragon to handle. He acts optimistic by thinking of Jane. Thinking as much of her as he could, he wondered why would he suddenly be here.
At that moment, there is a melody that is calm and soft. This voice is a female's voice. A voice beyond of what he can imagine. He may have a thing about cows mooing, but this voice even takes the attention of the green fire-breathing dragon!
He intercepted the melody as a miracle and started putting an abnormally large faith into this voice. This fleeting melody reaching him has a beautiful voice. This voice is so beautiful that even the evil malice completely dissipated and also the surroundings around Dragon become a heavenly, divine sanctuary. He started to hear the diva singing a song. A song that denotes the same tune the old man is humming to Jane and Jester.
The stars that shine bright
Release your softest light
When dreams are seen
Through the shining screen
Blowing through the dark
Crumbling in the crack
Remove your sanity
From infinite treachery
When the shining light
beams at the height
When the stars are glowing
like the sun
When the brightest time is when you are inside
Just a shining hope of light
Just a shining...hope...of...light.
The scenery turns back to the fresh green forest where it belonged. With Dragon remembering every single lyric of the voice, he started singing in his falsetto form, not noticing that a spirit is circling around him in joy.
Back to Jane and Jester's perspective, the bearded old man had just about finished with his humming tune. He puts a childish smile on his face when he finished. Jane and Jester just looked rather speechless at the sound of the old man's voice. Who have seemingly sounded rather horridly bad that the voice seemed like a haunting child teasing in a very crude manner.
"So, how was it? Can you make up the song?" The old man asked while still looking childishly happy.
"Release your softest light" a beautiful falsetto voice is suddenly heard from the house.
"W-What was that? T-That lyrics...YES! YES! THIS IS IT!" The old man jumped in joy after saying those words.
"Hey..this voice. Its Dragon!" Jane screamed it out loud.
Jester then recalls back to the time he had lost his voice due to Jane's excessive training with him a few months back, he was quite sure that he can sing. Though the lyrics is something that Dragon won't be able to know unless someone has told him.
So Jester asked "Dragon? B-But how does he know the lyrics to the song?"
"Hmmm...this song can only be heard from one source only. My wife..she's the only person who can sing it with such perfection...!" He then snapped a thought in his mind and suddenly runs out of the cabin and into the forest where Dragon sang.
"When the stars are glowing
like the sun
When the brightest time is when you are inside
Just a shining hope of light"
After around that point in the song, just before he was about to finish, Dragon noticed the old man, Jane and Jester looking at him. The old man opened his big bearded mouth in complete idiocy. Dragon then stopped singing and the spirit suddenly runs away.
"What was then transparent thing?" Jane asked.
"Huh?..I have no idea." Dragon suddenly becomes defensive, knowing the fact that the "transparent thing" is the one that saved his life and that it is better to keep his ordeal a secret from the rest of them.
"Then how do you know that song? Its one of this old man's memorable song made by his wife. No one knows about it but her!" Jester pleaded for an answer at that point since Dragon seems to be hiding something.
"Uhhh.." Dragon could only say that before going into a silence.
"Its alright green one, you don't have to hide it from these people, especially my love." a voice suddenly speaks out of nowhere. The spirit materialized itself into the living.
"N-NO!...R-Regine.." The old man suddenly looked at the impossible. His own wife, right in front of him, while Jester and Jane thought that it was a ghost!
"Harold...There's no need to hide anything from these people. I can see that they are suffering. An evil mistress is the cause of all of this. It even attempts to devour this poor creature here. I was fortunate to come here and sing just to save him from harm." Regine, the ghost, said.
This reveals the old man's name to be Harold.
"Devour..Dragon?" Jane asked.
"Yes. A large evil aura is watching you right now! Blocking your path to the legendary hero. This evil fortunately cannot kill, but it can manipulate. She's trying to make sure that you wouldn't reach the hero by sending in fake ghosts, bandits and now she's trying to envelop Dragon with a dark aura. You have to be careful about this since you're being watched. My divine song will only guide you this once. So I-I'm sorry if I can't be of much help now." Regine apologized.
However, Jane thinks otherwise. Since without her, Dragon would be under the evil influence. Though she's quite unhappy about Dragon being defensive before.
"Sorry Jane." The poor dragon said with regret.
"Don't be Dragon. I was the one who was wrong. I hid myself from my husband for years now, as a spirit materialist." Regine speak in the defense of Dragon's actions.
"O-OH! YES! I know why you're not here now. I thought you were gone. You were mysteriously disappeared during the night..before our first anniversary." Harold said with vigor.
Harold then deduced that the reason why Regine left him is because she wanted to run away from reality. She didn't want to give birth to another child and became depressed on that day. That's when her powers activated. She turned herself into a spirit to save herself from it all. Jester thinks that it is strange for him not being forgetful of his wife. He assumed it to be the only part of his memory that he pertained.
"But you couldn't handle it, so you came back, didn't you." Harold said to her.
"Oh..Harold." The 45-year old spirit materialist hugged the old man. Jane just leave the two alone until a few minutes later when they returned to the house.
Jane then looked at the couple together and seemingly looking at Jester, who seems to be looking back. However, the two retract their stares and returned to the couple.
"I owe you people a great deal. Not only you know of the song, you also sang it perfectly and bring back my beautiful wife back to me again. I suppose I can give you all the information now." The old man said with a very pleasing and soothing voice, unlike before, which is still a bit rusty in his tongue.
"Ahem.." The bearded old man Harold clears his throat. Regine just laughed. It seems that Regine is younger than Harold. A little younger than what Jester expected, but he didn't complain at all.
"About what happened, Draugit had to follow his knightly duties. Though he lost his soul completely after Clarissa left him. His friend Raymond also disappeared out of nowhere as well. Clarissa and Raymond is never seen then. This made Draugit fed up with being a hero that he sealed himself. What he didn't know is that Clarissa and Raymond are alive and young even to this day!" The old man explained. Jester and Jane are shocked by this. Clarissa and Raymond, the hero's fiancée and friend is alive and young?
"E-Excuse me? But how old they are right now?" Jester asked.
The old man Harold continued "They were 18 years old. Same age. 50 years ago. However, to my surprise, they are alive and are taken hostage by an evil man. Can't say his name though. His name is too hard to pronounce. Ar..ce..gu..ti..dof...e..." The others opened their mouths in disbelief.
"50 years...They should be 68 years old then!" Jane and Jester thought.
"Well, get this. They were in the Kippernians' enemy's territory...the Gypsies! I saw both of them just a few months ago and they are no younger than 20!" This made everyone in the house completely bewildered by the old man's statement. No younger than twenty? They must have thought that the old man is crazy. But his tone and voice is far away from imagination and creativity. What he said is the truth!
"Then why didn't you rescue them?" Jester said
"I'm sorry young man! The girl somehow got possessed by something when I saw her. And the boy was kept strictly on guard with too many guards around him. I don't have any magical powers like some wizards do! So I'm sorry. That's why I left. To prevent myself from being part of this mess in the first place." Harold started to sob after saying those words. Jester knows that it really tore him apart when he couldn't do anything.
"I'm sorry Harold.." Jester said. Knowing better not to say too much since it was a sensitive subject.
Harold stopped sobbing after a bit of reminiscing.
Jane then suddenly remembered something from what happened a few days ago.
"Wait! Can you tell me what the girl looked like?" Jane asked.
"The girl?..She had long hair..black long hair if I'm not mistaken." Harold mentioned. This makes Jane remembered the purple flames and the shadow of the girl. Then she suddenly knows who caused the fires..The woman who once loved Draugit, Clarissa.
"Jester! We have to save Draugit now! We need to find the girl and get her out of the Gypsies' hands!" Jane said, suprising Jester and Regine.
"I know. But why? We need to find the cause of the one who decimated our castle and our friends." Jester asked to Jane with utter intensity.
Jane paused for awhile..a long while. Before saying that she has to do it as a knight's relationship. Jester perceived this as something else, but he doesn't want to delve on it further. Harold and Regine then give them objects to help them on their quest. A map of the European region and the border of the Gypsies kingdom. They seem to be apprehensive about having the information about their enemies. However, they know that they aren't going to go there for battle nor for war. The other object is another scroll piece. It fits into the first scroll they found yesterday.
"What a coincidence.." Jester thought.
The two left afterwards. Dragon also say their farewells to Regine, since she's the one who saved her.
"Come here if you have time okay!" Regine said.
"Sure!" Dragon replied.
"So, Jane. How do you suppose we could fit these together based on what we know." Jester take out the scroll and read the whole piece.
"The hero lies upon the forces of light. The dark powers sealed him within the bowels of slumber. Awakening would require a knight of brave soul. But the location remains to be found. The only way is to find a spring in a secret place somewhere. There are few who manage to find this spring, only to fail. The powers that influence him would have to be of someone who is bold and brave. Kippernians who found this scroll...I hope you can find the hero, and save the kingdom from inevitable dissipation. There is also one thing you should know about the hero, despite the influx of inconsistency and that is-"
"I wonder what should we know about this..'influx of inconsistency' thing?" Dragon asked.
"I don't know Dragon. I just don't know. But we know for certain..Draugit and Clarissa must be together..I have to save both of them from certain doom that's worse than death." Jane said calmly.
This makes Jester seemed like another fool. Wonder what's he missing from Jane that her passion suddenly becomes indomitable. Dragon seemed oblivious, but after hearing the conversation with his sensitive ears, he know that he agree with Jane whatever the consequences.
And where they should go next?...Who knows?..Since...the whole story will turn into something no one expected.
"My plans all fail..it is of no use. I suppose I must confront those boneheaded fools after all. Draugit..You must not see me again. Not like this."
"This time...when it all comes down to me...and you. Jane Turnkey."
"Draugit...
Okay! That should be it. The story for Ch. 10 follows later to their trip to Europe. Though, I have to wonder..how can Kippernium and Europe and Gypsy connect each other. There must be more black magic than what you can expect! The next chapter will follow that question but won't give full answers. Anyways, reviews? I really need them despite the fact that there's no more conditions for it.
This story actually briefed you on Draugit, Clarissa and Raymond. The 3 characters that I own, since it isn't part of the JaTD story. How they met and what happened to them is briefed here. However, details will be on a separate chapter. Most of you already knows who's behind the incident by reading this. Its so obvious!