Raphtalia was giving him odd looks for two days now. Finally Crow turned to face her.
"What?"
"Why do you have a flying broom? I thought those things only existed in fairy tales for girls," she asked.
"Back in my world we had this sport called 'quidditch'. It was played on brooms, and I was exceptionally good at it. When I was thirteen my godfather bought me a very expensive racing broom, since my original one was destroyed. After a while it was replaced with something better, and I kept getting the latest versions as a bribe. I have at least eight versions of the things, but the Firebolt is the one I stand by."
It was ironic, but he could literally make his own quidditch team, down to the hoops if he so wanted. He had everything required to play it, from the different balls (he had three sets), to the bats, to the brooms themselves. He wasn't an idiot, and he had bought several of the newer (and quite a few of the older models like the Nimbus 2000) in the event he needed a quick get away and his current broom was destroyed.
Seeing her interest, Crow seized on a chance to help her.
"Tell you what, if you're interested I can teach you how to fly. I'm practically untouchable in the air."
Fawkes trilled in complete agreement to that statement. He had seen Crow fly, and there was almost nothing that could catch him, let alone touch him. There was little wonder he preferred animals that flew whenever he turned into one.
Raphtalia had misgivings, but she was willing to give it a shot. It looked easy.
That assumption went out the window. First she had to get the thing to come to her hand, which the broom refused to do because she was slightly nervous about her motion sickness kicking in. Then came the balancing. She kept slipping off the end.
Finally came the actual flying.
Five minutes of that and she was quite happy to stay on the ground, thank you very much! She never knew she had a fear of heights until she got roughly ten feet off the ground and Crow had to help her land.
On the plus side, she didn't even notice the puppy sitting in her lap trying to comfort her since she was still freaking out a bit.
"I am never doing that again," said Talia firmly.
"It wasn't that..." started Crow, before he broke down laughing. The look on her face! He couldn't even finish his sentence before he cracked up.
"How can you possibly stand flying?!"
"Dunno. I've always felt at home in the air, and it never occurred to me that I should be afraid," shrugged Crow.
He honestly never thought about it. Ever since the first time he rode a broom, not once did he think about the fact he was in the air. It just felt natural to him.
"So where to next?"
"The next wave isn't for three weeks."
"So, just wander around until we find a quest worth dealing with?" said Crow. Talia nodded.
Crow twitched when he heard what happened to the town.
"So just to be clear, the Spear hero came through here, handed a seed he barely knew anything about, then left not bothering to see if the thing was safe?"
The mayor nodded miserably.
"Any doubts I had about his intelligence are gone. He is absolutely one of the biggest idiots I've ever met."
And he had thought Ron was a complete idiot.
Crow sighed, before looking at his group. The puppy was hidden by the wagon and a cloaking spell (he had found out early on people were either terrified of it or just wanted it for parts), Firo hadn't eaten today, and Raphtalia was always ready to fight.
"We'll clear out the mess the Spear hero started, in exchange for any magic books you have."
"Deal," said the Mayor without hesitation. Magic books were relatively easy to come by, but heroes who could clear out this mess were not.
The group headed into town, where Crow let the puppy (it was already level fifteen and still small enough to fit in the wagon without expansion charms) out. At this point Raphtalia had learned to tolerate it's existence in the group.
"Fawkes, you keep any of the plants from leaving the town with your fire. Firo, you'll use hit and run attacks, and when this is over help clean up. Fenrir (he looked at the puppy, who perked up at his name) you'll act as my back up. Raphtalia, you already know what to do. If we do this right this mess should be cleaned up before sunset," said Crow.
"Come on Fenrir, get in there!" said Crow, shoving the dog into the wagon. The hound whined, as it had grown in the span of a few hours until it was roughly the size of the wagon. It couldn't fit in there anymore.
"Why did it only get that big at level twenty when it was still puppy-sized at fifteen?"
"Probably for the same reason his mother was bigger than a double-decker bus," muttered Crow, before he answered her "At least he's not bigger than the wagon itself, though this will be a problem. How big did you say that Cerberus that attacked your parents was?"
"Big. Almost as big as our house. Why?"
"Well think of it this way. If Fenrir keeps getting bigger then he can kick that dog's ass when we finally find the bastard," said Crow cheerfully.
Raphtalia considered that. Fenrir was roughly the same size as Cerberus was, but she wasn't afraid or hated him. And his mother had been massive before they had to kill her. So the thought of traveling with a massive dog big enough to ride, surprisingly, didn't bother her.
She knew Fenrir was friendly, provided Crow introduced you first. He was reasonably paranoid about anyone older than ten.
Fenrir whined. It didn't want to ride in the cart again.
Crow gave up.
"You can run so long as you keep up. But you'll stay under a cloaking spell so no one freaks out, agreed?"
Fenrir barked. He didn't mind the cloaking spells.
They made good time after Crow picked out some magic books and received a good amount of food from the seed he had fixed. Most of the food he kept went into his bags. The rest went under a preservation charm so they wouldn't wilt before they made it to the next town.
For a few hours things were fine. At least until Crow got bored enough to search through his bags again.
He grinned in triumph, and pulled out...an Ipod?
"I knew I packed a spare!"
Raphtalia was under a sleep spell. He had placed an enchantment that let her sleep through the ride so she wouldn't get sick. She would still see everything as if she were awake, but it would be more like she had dreamed the entire thing.
It was actually considered a dark spell considering the original use for the spell, but it was an excellent way for someone with motion sickness to deal with it.
Crow put his spare Ipod to the shield, and to his relief it absorbed it and became a rather odd looking shield.
Requirements for Symphony Shield. 75 percent increase power to audio-based attacks. 75 increase to defense to audio-based attacks. Passive ability: Music Player.
"I do believe I've found my new favorite shield."
Crow went through his music list (he had a massive library of practically every song ever made) before he found one he liked. He hit the 'play' button on the shield and music started playing from invisible speakers.
AC/DC's Back in Black began playing, loud enough that it could have come from a car with a massive stereo system set on low. And from the massive grin he had on his face, he definitely found his new favorite shield.
"What is that awful racket?!" said Talia when she woke up a few hours later.
"What racket? They don't seem to mind," said Crow.
Talia noticed the odd shield.
"You. You're the reason I've been hearing weird songs," she said with narrowed eyes.
"What do you have against Linkin Park and AC/DC?" he asked.
"I don't know who those are, and frankly I don't care."
"Okay, let me try another tactic..." he said, switching the song list around.
It took two tries before he figured out Talia preferred pop music...though now he was glad she had motion sickness. It meant he could play his music in peace!
"I expected this sort of thing from the spear idiot. But Sword boy?"
The entire village was covered in a deadly miasma. It was making people sick.
Ren, the Hero of the Sword, had come through here and killed a dragon. However, despite having pretty much dismembered the corpse, he still left more than enough meat for it to rot. And since it was a dragon he killed, the magic naturally went bad causing a deadly sickness. Until the corpse was dealt with, anyone who came to this area was either doomed to die or would have to leave. Two had already died.
Crow sighed. He had wanted to avoid using these, but he couldn't in good conscience leave this mess alone. Though next time he saw the Sword hero he was going to give him a long lecture on cleaning up after his fights. Though to be fair, Crow had at least had two monsters (one that could clean up pretty much any monster he killed) to eat the meat he didn't keep. At the very least he should have brought the dragon's corpse down in pieces to sell the meat, or set the thing on fire.
"Is there anything you can do?" begged the lone captain of the soldiers.
"I can save the town and deal with the dragon. I guess my old habit of saving people after the mess of others has never fully gone away. First thing's first, I'm going to try and get rid of the miasma and heal everyone once I set up a barrier."
Crow held out his hand for Fawkes.
"I'm going to need you to stick around here this time to keep the barrier going. And if anything happens you can warn them to leave the village to die."
Fawkes crooned, but he understood. He would do more good keeping the spirit up and the barrier going.
"When I find the dragon and I have to dispose of the remains, I'll call you to set the thing on fire. Seems only fitting that a phoenix give a noble beast a proper send off."
Fawkes chirped in agreement.
Crow reluctantly withdrew three items. A silvery cloak, a crack stone, and a long bone-white wand. One by one he put them on his shield, and it absorbed them. Once all three were incorporated into the shield, he got the pop up alert.
Hallow Shield. 100 percent increase attack power to all spells. 100 percent defense from creatures with 'undead' status. Spell casting time decreased by fifty percent. Seventy-five percent increase to all seances while active. Perfect invisibility to all party members as long as shield is active. Thirty minute invincibility limit when overclock is used.
"As I suspected... this shield is way over powered. At least once I'm gone they'll be taken with me," said Crow to himself. He hated the Hallows (except the cloak) and the only time he ever used them was in extreme circumstances.
"Talia, Firo, Fenrir...let's go."
Crow cast a bubblehead charm on all of them to avoid breathing in the miasma. The last thing he needed was for any of them to get sick.
"Fenrir, Firo, when we find the dragon don't eat anything. That thing has been rotting for weeks and the last thing I want to deal with is either of you getting sick or dying because of bad food. If you're really hungry after this I'll cook you up something myself," said Crow.
Firo and Fenrir chirped and barked respectively.
"And as for you Talia...don't touch the dragon's skin. The magic that went corrupt will place a nasty curse on you if you touch it, and I don't know how to make healing water."
"Got it."
"Let's clean this mountain up."
They went deep...deep into the mountainside, clearing out various monsters on the way. Crow let Firo and Fenrir eat those, since he didn't sense anything bad about them. Yes, they were poisonous, but he was reasonably sure Fawkes could cure any poison they ingested if their own immune system didn't.
The more he ate, the bigger Fenrir got. He was definitely going to be too big to fit in the wagon anymore.
"Okay, not I'm not sure if it was the location or just the type of dog he is, but he is massive! He's bigger than Fluffy ever was!" said Crow impressed.
"...Fluffy?"
"You have your Cerberus, I have mine. In my case when I was eleven and just starting out learning magic, I came across a large three headed dog that the groundskeeper named Fluffy. The ironic thing was that the dog in question was a male, and didn't really strike me as Fluffy. Damn thing tried to bite my head off because we stumbled into the room it was in, though it went to sleep pretty quick when someone played music."
Talia stopped, turn and stared at him.
"Someone actually named a Cerberus 'Fluffy'?"
"To be fair, the groundskeeper was half giant and had a baby dragon for a while that he named Norbert. Sweetest guy you could ever meet, but he didn't always think things through because he generally assumed everyone was as durable as he was."
"Fluffy?" repeated Talia. The name 'Fluffy' simply ran itself through her head in disbelief. Who could possibly think Fluffy was a good name for a massive three headed dog?!
"If it makes you feel any better you can always imagine the Cerberus that killed your parents being named 'Fluffy'."
Raphtalia had to shake the idea out of her head. Still, the fact that Crow had once met a Cerberus named Fluffy would bug her for days.
"So where is this dragon corpse anyway?"
They went through the cave, and they saw it.
"Now whatever you do, don't say anything that mentions the undead. Doing that around me increases the probability of the damn thing turning into one. Murphy's law has it out for me and I hate giving it a reason to notice me," said Crow before Talia could say a word. And then he added "I'll explain it after we're done disposing of the corpse."
Crow then went closer to the beast.
"Now if I remember that book right, the dragon's core should be somewhere around..." Crow suddenly paused before he changed his shield and shoved his hand deep, deep into the chest of the dragon corpse. Thanks to the shield and the protection of the Hallow Shield he was able to reach into the dragon without being effected by the magic it still contained. He just hoped like hell that the shield didn't absorb anything.
Finally he touched something hard, and yanked as hard as he could. His entire arm had been buried deep in the thing, so it came out with a 'squelch' sound. If he wasn't used to worse, he would have felt sick at the sensation of the foul magic.
"Talia, check the book so I know we have the core. The sooner we set this thing on fire, the happier everyone will be."
"Got it. That looks like the core, but what happens if it's not the core?"
"Then we might have to fight the damn thing until we do find the core."
Crow concentrated, calling Fawkes to him. The phoenix appeared and he promptly created a barrier from the heat as the bird set the corpse ablaze.
Once the air began to clear of the deadly miasma, Crow began searching around for anything missed. If this was the dragon's lair then the most obvious treasures would have been taken, but he had learned that there was always something people missed.
That was when he stepped on it. An innocuous earring that radiated magic. Either someone had dropped it or had ignored it since there wasn't a second one just like it. It was gold, and had a blood ruby that practically screamed it was magical in origin.
It wasn't tacky, but it didn't look impressive to the casual observer. He picked it up and pocketed the thing to find out what it did later. Another sweep, this time inspecting all the nooks and crannies (including flying up to the crevice just above) netted him several other trinkets the first hero missed because he wasn't as thorough.
When they came down, it was to find a grateful village.
Crow was just glad he remembered to replace the spell on Fenrir.
"So you're tracking the Cerberus down as well?" said Crow.
"The accursed thing killed my friends."
"It killed her parents and destroyed her village. But I see no reason why you can't join us long enough to kill the damn thing," said Crow.
"Not sure how much help I can be with someone as powerful as one of the Legendary Heroes."
"Just because you can't see your use now doesn't mean a little extra help wouldn't be welcomed. If nothing else you can help get any civilians out or fortify an area while we're attacking it," said Crow.
The man looked at him with respect. This was someone who knew the reality of battle.
"What's your name son?"
"I go by Crow. It's less painful if I don't let people get too close, because I've been betrayed far too often in my life."
"Antillus Crassus. I'm an old friend of Captain Cyril of the Queen's Knights," he said, holding out his hand.
"I'm liking you more already," said Crow grinning. The two shook, sensing that the other party was an old warrior. "Just out of curiosity do you have anything against large dogs?"
"Just Cerberus."
"Oh good. I really would hate it if you accidentally killed Fenrir just because of a misunderstanding," said Crow. Inwardly he was grinning. Seeing people's reaction to his dog was always hilarious.