"Oh my!" Sarah gasps, "Poor Jansen. . ."
Of course, it isn't the most tragic story she's heard in her over a thousand years on this planet. However, she definitely didn't expect one of her current companions to have had a life such as what she was told. More surprisingly, Jansen.
"I-Is there more to it?" Sarah questions in a whisper.
Ming furrows her brows at her guest. "What do you mean by that?" She asks.
The queen's guest looks away, adjusting her glasses to try to build up the courage to ask what she's about to ask. "I mean. . ." She starts, "It sounds like he might have held something back when he told you about that. Like there are worse parts of the story that he's not willing to tell. . ."
Ming is speechless. She'd not even considered the possibility that Jansen might have withheld some of the story. She'd figured that once her husband finally built up the courage and confidence to reveal his past to, he'd reveal his entire past.
"Well. . ." The queen says quietly, "I-I suppose that some parts of his story did have some open spaces in it. . . I. . ."
Sarah clears her throat when she senses her friend's discomfort. "Never mind," She says, "I shouldn't have mentioned it."
"No, no. It's alright. I had actually had a feeling that there was something strange about his story when he told me, I suppose I just didn't want to think he would lie to me or hide something from me to such an extent. Or maybe I was just so satisfied to know, or at least think I know, about his life prior to our marriage. . .?"
"My queen." Comes a voice from outside the open dining room door. The two women look over at the guard in acknowledgement. "It is time to depart to Samon."
"Ah," Ming gasps. That's right, she was supposed to work on revitalizing the magical barrier around the village port of Samon today, same as she did to Tosca village yesterday. "Prepare the boat, I will be down in just a moment."
The guard bows and walks off.
"It was good talking to you again, Sarah." She says as they stand together.
"It's the same for me, to you." The guest replies quietly, "And please, Ming, try not to let this get in between you royal scepter."
Ming stops in her tracks and gives his friend a questioning look. "'Royal scepter?' Sarah, I don't have a royal scepter, you know this. . ."
Sarah gives the taller woman a sly smirk and giggles quietly.
After standing silently in place for a few moments, the queen's cheeks light up and starts to push loose locks of hair out of her face in an attempt to re-gather her composure. "Sarah. . . Honestly. . ." She whispers. But her good friend only giggles more.
Jansen groans quietly as he watches the shiny retreating back of the croaking enemy. 'Damn Silver Kelolon bastards!' He thinks, 'Why the hell do they even start a fight if they're just gonna run away as soon as we start attacking?!' With one more annoyed groan, he follows suit with everyone else in the group and relaxes from his battle stance (that was hardly in place to begin with).
They're completely stumped at this point. They've swept through the entirety of the cave three times over already, and yet, they've not found a single sign that this cave has even the slightest trace of what they're looking for. The leader of the pack had insisted over and over that they were in the correct place, but even he has lost his confidence.
"Maybe Sarah misinterpreted the translation. . .?" Kaim says more to himself as they begin their fourth loop about the watery cave, "Maybe it's in that cave we were frozen in? What was the name of that one again?"
"C'mon!" Sed yells, "We can't just give up on this spot so easily!. . . Hey, what exactly did that whatever-the-hell ancient script of holy-holiness say about it anyway?" He asks.
Kaim stops in his tracks, thinking. The rest of his group follows his lead and look at him expectantly. ". . . It said something like, 'behold a past buried in the dark of the cave of moisture, and gold. There, the darkness will burst into a path of ether. . .'" The stoic man looks down at the ground silently, then looks back up. "There's more after that, but it goes on for a while. . ."
'. . . Buried in the dark of the cave of moisture and gold. . .' Jansen thinks, 'Maybe. . .'
"Maybe we need to do something in the darkest part of the cave?" He suggest.
Everyone looks at him with surprise plastered on their faces., Jansen's idea was pretty. . . good, and the rest of the group wasn't expecting him to come up with something like that at all, let alone be the only one to some up with something!
"Good thinking. . ." Sed says, finally breaking the silence that settles over the group. ". . . Your Majesty."
The king groans quietly at the nickname that's supposed to belong to the younger king. 'Now I really don't like the both of you.' He thinks.
The team begins to search around the cave once again. After encountering a few more Silver Kelolons - all of which proceeded to flee from battle immediately - they find themselves staring at a densely shadowed area underneath one of the rocky paths on the far end.
"This should be it, then." Kaim mumbles lowly. They approach the darkness, growing more and more weary with each step they take. Now fully engulfed in the shadow, the group takes a good look around the area and finds nothing outstanding or noteworthy enough to investigate more closely - the only exception being a chest, which they remembered to have opened themselves, after some arguing.
"Damn!" Jansen curses, "Stuck again! What now?!" He's really starting to reach the end of his chain at this point. He came with his old group on this trip in hopes for a satisfying adventure, and they can't go any further than this?! The king looks over at companions with a scowl on his face and sees that they're just as disappointed as he.
"Kaim. . .?" Mack says to his grandfather. "Maybe you should try saying what you said earlier again?"
Kaim stares at the young man for a moment before he looks down at the ground and tries to recall the passage he recited from before. "'. . . In the dark of the cave of moisture and gold. There, the darkness will burst into a path of ether. . .'" He suddenly snaps his head up and looks at the black mage. "Maybe you need to cast a spell, Jansen."
The king raises an eyebrow at the suggestion. He agrees that having him cast a spell would make sense in this case - seeing as how the spell they're hunting for is supposedly a black magic spell. But what spell would be appropriate to cast. . .? "Hm. . . Well, it did use the word 'burst'." He thinks, "Maybe I need to use my most explosive spell?"
"Alright," He says out loud, "Stand back!"
The group steps away from the mage and brace themselves. He stands his staff upright in front of him and grips it tightly with one hand. Leaning into the weapon, he brings his other hand up as the air around him begins to shimmer and radiate with a pale blue aura. The energy surrounding the area starts to tremble as it quickly crowds into his body, making him tremble as well. He stays, concentrating on the spell like this for just a few more moments before his occupied hand shoots backward and thrusts his empty hand forward, casting the spell.
The darkness in front of him becomes completely devoid of all light, turning it into a total dark abyss. Then, a giant, colorful orb forms high above him, expanding at an alarming rate. With an orange beam shooting out from its sides, countless, multicolored rays of light shoot down in front of Jansen, just far enough to not touch him. The rays meet a bright seal that had formed as the orb the did with a violent impact that causes the entirety of the dark abyss to shake. Four more, smaller seals form above the first as the rays of color continue pounding into it. Finally, one more ray of light, white in color and bigger than all the other rays put together, hits the largest seal with a furious tremor, and the darkness explodes into a blinding white, thus completing the Leveler spell.
A young, brunetee-haired boy digs a jagged stick deeply into a hard dirt patch packed tightly atop the golden paved streets of Uhra. It's nighttime, and the boy is not allowed to go back into the house until his mother's final customer of the evening leaves The man is a regular of his mother's, and he usually doesn't finish up until his father returns from work.
Suddenly, a short, hollow 'bang' followed by his mother's shriek comes from the house.
His mind no longer tries to make excuses when he hears the sounds coming from inside the tiny house - he'd finally decided to see for himself what was going on one day and snuck into the house and peeked into his parent's bedroom while his mother was working. Needless to say, he wishes that that he hadn't indulged his curiosity, because now he can't deny the accusations from the man that often stumble by - and sometimes, into - his house from the local tavern at night.
His ears perk up when the noises from inside the house finally stop. After a few moments, the customer steps out with a hearty laugh erupting loudly from his ale-drenched mouth. "I swear boy," He starts as his drunken laughter dies down, "Your mother really knows how to treat a man!"
The boy just stares at him blankly - whether it's because he isn't smart enough to respond or even understand the innuendo behind the man's remark, or whether he'd just grown numb to all of the comments that came from his mother's patrons after they partook in her services, isn't clear at this point.
As the customer is opening his mouth to say something even more suggestive to the child, the voice of the boy's father calls out to the man, "Is she still good for you, Thomas?!"
"As good as always!" The man responds with another hearty laugh as he turns on his heel to walks off into the night.
". . . Get in the house. boy." The father says curtly after the customer is out of sight. The boy silently follows him inside, not wanting to upset the man. The mother is counting gold bits from a small money purse at the dinner table as they enter. Her auburn hair is frizzy and tangled and her beady brown eyes are focused on the money in front of her.
Finally, she looks up at her husband, the whites of her eyes bloodshot from the drinks she'd had earlier in the night. "I only made five hundred this month." Her voice is low and strained in quiet anger.
He husband growls quietly, responding with, "And I only made 750." He removes his own gold purse from his waist band a takes another, larger one from a high cabinet above the ice box. The man empties the contents of his purse into the larger bag and his wife does the same.
"We need to get help with all this if we can even dream of being able to keep living in this country." The mother says before tucking her purse into her dress. Then she continues with, "We have two bedrooms in this damned house and only one is being used! And you could make so much more of that powder with another person helping!"
Her husband groans and plops himself down on a chair. "We've talked about this, woman, we would have to pay those people if we hired them! We'd probably end up making even less on our end!"
His wife, in her frustration, picks up a mug from atop the cutting board and throws it at her husband. He easily ducks out of the way, but it doing that, his son takes the hit instead. The boy let out a pained gasp upon impact and falls backward into the wall behind him. He quickly scrambles onto his knees and over to his bedroom, shielding himself with the shadow casted by the door as he continues to listen in on the argument.
"Alright the, fine!" She yells as she finally reaches her breaking point, "If we don't get help," His mother yells, poking his father hard into his chest. "Then we can't make up the money in time, and get kicked out. And, if we do get help, we'll have to split up the money, somehow "make less," and still get kicked out! Unless we can find someone who's stupid enough to work without pay, we got nothing! So," She slams her hands down on the table violently onto the table, "What do you suggest?!"
The room is silent. The couple only glare at each other to fill the stillness of the room. The man opens his mouth at one point, but shuts it just as quickly. His wife looks at him expectantly, refusing to move away until he his mouth relays what he was going to say.
With a sigh, the man opens his mouth once more and says, "What about the boy?"