Time for the next major character of the plot to make her first appearance here!
Enjoy!
Chapter 6: Tower of Alexandria
[BGM: Mysterious Tower – Dragon Quest VIII]
By the time we arrived at our destination, it was already sunset. I mean, we did wake up past midday back at Farebury, so it makes sense. Once we arrived, I looked up at the structure before me in awe: a tall wall with catwalks stood in front of a large platform that held the main tower itself, which was more on the left side being connected by a bridge from a three-layered building on the right side. Several trees surrounded the structure, and I could see a fence filled with vegetation on the left side as well, presumably to prevent easy access to the tower. The whole structure also appeared to be old and slowly decaying as vegetation covered its walls, their spread clearly indicating that this place was left abandoned for many years.
"We made it! Jessica's in there." Bangerz said as we stopped in front of the door. "Now let's get this door open. It's a special door, y'know. Only the people of Alexandria know how to open it."
We all stared at him skeptically. "Oh, yeah? And what makes you say that, kid?" Aya questioned.
"Go on, give it a try if you all don't believe me." Bangerz replied smugly.
"Oh, I'll show you!" Cirno boasted and began pushing the door as hard as she could… but it didn't budge. It seemed to be locked. "Huh…? Oh! Maybe pulling is the answer!" she planted her feet against the door and started pulling by its handles. "Hnnnnngh!" she grunted. "Come on! Open up…!" even if the door wasn't budging, she still kept at it… "Wah!" until her hands slipped off from the handles, causing her to fall to the ground on her back.
"See? I told you! Only Alexandrians know how to open this door." Bangerz said pridefully before he 'shooed' us away so that he could get directly in front of the door. "This is an emergency, so I'll show you how to open the door. But you have to promise never to tell anyone! Okay. Here we go." we watched as Bangerz grabbed the door by its bottom…and lifted it up to open it. "Open sesame!"
*record scratch*
We blinked in disbelief. "…WHAT." Marisa could only say.
"Pretty cool, eh? It opens from the bottom!" Bangerz laughed dumbly… in which we reacted as if he just told a really bad joke. So he cleaned his throat and said in his brash attitude as usual, "Well, this is as far as I'm goin'. I'll head back to the village now. You all help Jessica!" and with that, he ran off.
[Resume "Mysterious Tower" BGM]
"…Okay, seriously? Even I would think of doing this eventually!" Cirno exclaimed. "You all agree with me, right?"
"You know… For once, I agree with you." Alice chimed in. "That was pretty underwhelming."
"Hey… at least we can now go in." I said with a shrug. "Come on, let's go find Jessica." and so we went through the doorway, immediately coming across a staircase leading up to one of the catwalks.
"I reckon it'll be knackerin' to climb all the way up there." Yangus remarked. "You'd all be much better at it than me." he referred to me and the girls.
"Oh, this tower doesn't seem that tall, Yangus." I replied. "I'm sure you'll be just fine."
Yangus smirked. "Heh, thanks, guv."
"Can't we just fly all the way to the top instead?" Remilia asked. "I don't really feel like hurting my feet with all this climbing."
The rest of the girls glanced weirdly at Remilia. "Uh, hello? Did you forget that Eight and Yangus can't fly like us?" Reisen reminded.
"Two of us can just carry them."
"And how exactly do you think that Jessica will be at the top?" Youmu wondered. "She could be somewhere in any of the floors of this tower."
"Youmu has a point." Reimu threw in. "So whether you like it or not, we're doing things the normal way. And besides…" she raised an eyebrow. "Weren't you the one who said about wanting to explore previously?"
"That's completely different!" Remilia retorted, then she pouted and folded her arms. "Hmph, okay fine…"
With the conversation done, we went up the stairs and headed over to the door on our left. Going through it, we were taken to a large room with many lit torches on the columns and some rubble next to us, which means that part of this room's ceiling had collapsed. Taking the nearby spiraling steps, we went down to the lower level of the room… which had several Imps roaming around.
We immediately stopped walking as the Imps noticed us and with mischievous cackles, they made rings of magic appear around them as they were about to cast a spell… only for nothing to happen at all, much to the girls' bewilderment.
"Uh…" Aya blinked. "What happened?"
"Imps always try to cast spells that are far too powerful for them, and thus they fail every time due to their very low magic supply." I explained.
Marisa grinned amusedly. "Ha! What a bunch of losers!" she then aims her palm at the Imps. "Meteonic Debris!" she called out and fired several colorful star-shaped bullets at them, only for said missiles to hit a wall of ice. "What?!"
"…But they can do a Cool Breath, though." I told her.
"You couldn't have told me that sooner?!"
I sweatdropped. "I was going to…"
"Ah, whatever." Marisa took out a spell card. "Magic Sign: Milky Way!" star-shaped danmaku shot out of her in a milky way pattern, taking out all the Imps in an instant. "There we go!" she exclaimed while dusting off her hands.
I chuckled. "What would I do without you and the rest of you, girls…" I said as we left the room and we ended back outside; inside the fence's boundary, to be more precise. As we walked around, we soon came upon some Frogfaces hopping about.
"Frogs!" Cirno suddenly beamed and before I knew it, she unleashed her Perfect Freeze move and froze every single Frogface in front of us before they all shattered to pieces. "Aw, come on… I failed already?" but instead of sounding victorious by that, Cirno sounded disappointed… for some reason?
"Wait… Ya didn't mean ta kill 'em?" Yangus asked, confused.
"No! I wanted to freeze them solid and then watch them slowly thaw out!"
"Uhh… what?" I raised an eyebrow, looking even more confused than Yangus.
Marisa patted my arm. "Oh, she just has this strange hobby of using her powers to freeze frogs and watching them thaw." she told me in a very casual tone.
"Okay… but why frogs, though?"
"Because they're the only creatures living around Misty Lake, which is where Cirno also lives."
"Oh." I will say that this is a pretty weird hobby, but if Cirno enjoys doing that, then I won't even bother with it.
So we continued on, going up another set of stairs to reach the second level and another door, where it next took us to a very small room with two sets of ladders: one leading up to the next floor and another leading down to some sort of storage room. Out of curiosity, I decided to head to that storage room first and found a treasure chest that held a phial of Holy Water, and I put it into my knapsack. After that, I and Yangus climbed up the ladder to the third floor while the girls just flew up, then we went through the nearby door. It sent us back outside, directly in front of the bridge that led to the main tower. There were a few Healslimes on patrol around the door but I easily took them out with my new boomerang weapon, then we headed into the tower's door.
The interior of the tower was incredibly darker compared to the building we were before, but it was thankfully not as dark as the Waterfall Cave so we could still see our surroundings well, including the iron bars directly in front of us that was blocking our way through.
"Those bars are blocking our way." Youmu pointed out the obvious. "I could try to cut them up, but I don't want to draw any monsters' attention…"
I looked around the room, and then my eyes darted over to a strange carving on the wall on the left. I approached it, and saw that it had the face of a monster complete with blue jewels for the eyes. "Curious…" I mused as I reached out my hand to touch it, and the moment I did that… "Whoooa!" I yelled as the portion of the floor I was on suddenly rotated around, taking me to the other side of the wall.
"Guv!?" I heard Yangus shouting from the other side. "Wot just 'appened?"
"It was the carving I touched!" I replied. "Just do the same thing to get to me!" after that, I stepped back to leave more room for Yangus and the girls to come out, and shortly after, they appeared before me.
"How fascinating… For an old-looking tower, I never imagined it would hold something like this…" Alice mused as we walked up the stairs to the upper floor, using another one of those moving walls to get to the other side… where we encountered even more roaming monsters.
"…Okay, isn't there a way we can get these monsters away from us, Eight?" Reimu asked me.
"There is a way." I replied and took out the Holy Water that I got earlier. "By using Holy Water, which is a repellent that will ward off any weaker monsters from us for a brief period of time." I explained. "But are you sure you want me to use it on us already?"
"Yes, do it. Because this monster situation is getting ridiculous."
"Alright." with that, I poured out the water and sprinkled it all over us. Immediately, all the roaming monsters scurried away from us and decided to camp on the corners.
"Wow! It actually worked!" Aya exclaimed.
I smiled. "You see it now? Now we can continue our progress without having any monsters bother us!"
"Goodness, imagine if Mistress Eirin one day manages to create a repellent that can ward off any man-eating youkai…" Reisen pondered.
"Holy crap, that'd be a genius idea!" Marisa exclaimed. "That way, the humans can feel safe around any areas in Gensokyo that has strong youkai activities!"
"I dunno about that… I feel like it's going to ruin my job of youkai extermination if that were to happen…" Reimu sighed.
Again, I didn't understand most of what they were saying, but I let it slide. With no monsters coming near us, the rest of our progress around the tower went smoothly, and soon we managed to reach the area that was behind the iron bars. One more set of stairs awaited us, and so we went up them.
[BGM End]
The stairs led us to the very top of the tower, which directly up ahead in front of us beyond some stairs laid a statue of a delicate young woman with red jewels for her eyes, with waterfalls flowing down around the area. The area also had hollow arches along the walls that showed the sky outside, and it was now nighttime.
"Well, we finally made it to the top… and we didn't find that Jessica bird anywhere." Yangus said. Indeed; no matter where we wandered around the tower, we couldn't find Jessica anywhere. Oh, I just hope that Bangerz kid wasn't lying to us…
"I don't know about you guys, but that statue over there piqued my interest." Remilia said as she started going up the stairs. "Especially those scarlet red jewels it has for its eyes…"
"I knew this would catch your attention…" Reimu rolled her eyes. "Though I am also curious about that statue, too."
"I don't see anyone else around here, so maybe it's safe we go check it out for a bit." Alice said and we walked over to the statue, which as I said before, its eyes were set with a pair of beautiful, shimmering jewels. They were quite mesmerizing to look at, to tell you the truth.
"Hm? Hold on, guys…" Youmu spoke up in a serious tone with an expression to match, as she gripped the handle of her katana while her eyes darted to the side.
"Youmu?" I asked.
"Someone is coming from behind us." by this, we all immediately turned around… and we saw that at the spot we used to be stood a girl holding a bouquet of flowers on her hands, before letting it slip out of them upon seeing us.
The girl appeared to be 17 years old, possessing a slender but very curvaceous figure with a pretty large bust size (I'd even say it's a bit much for a girl in her late teens like her…). She had long ginger hair that was tied up in twin pigtails with a few strands of it hanging over her face, her eyes were mocha-colored, and she wore dangling blue earrings. Her outfit consisted of a white dress shirt with a red tie and red trimming along her torso, a long black skirt that ended with red at the bottom, and brown slippers with ankle bands.
[BGM: Face It! – Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories]
Immediately after dropping her bouquet, she shot a hostile glare at us. Oh no, I know what's going to happen… "You! I knew you'd be back for the jewels! You killed my brother! Now you'll suffer the same fate!" Not this misunderstanding again… and this time there's no one here to clear it out. Hold up…did she just say 'brother'? So that must be Jessica!
"W-wait!" Reisen exclaimed, trying to reason with her. "We're not the ones who-…!" but she was cut off when Jessica suddenly shot a fireball at us, making us yelp and quickly duck to avoid it as it hit the statue instead, igniting it in flames.
"Hey! What's the big idea!?" Marisa retorted, but Jessica's only response was shooting another fireball, forcing us to dodge it by jumping out of the way.
"You're fast! I guess thieves need to be quick on their toes!" Jessica scowled. "But you won't get away from me this time!" then, she began charging a more powerful attack as all we could do was brace ourselves. "Prepare…to…d-"
[BGM End]
"…Wait!" just then, a masculine voice called out, causing our eyes – Jessica's included – to widen in surprise and we looked around for its source. Strangely enough, that voice sounded like it belonged to a spiritual being since it came out as an echo and, as I stated before, there was no one else in this tower aside from us.
[BGM: Over the Sorrow – Dragon Quest VIII]
"Jessica. It's me! Don't you recognize my voice?" the same voice spoke again, and once I and my companions got to hear it clearly, we realized that it was coming from… the statue?!
"Whoa! The statue just talked!" Cirno exclaimed.
"A-Alistair!?" Jessica asked in shock. Hold up… that was Alistair?! But how is he speaking through the statue?
"Stay your spell, Jessica! I wasn't slain at their hands." Alistair informed. Phew… Even if the one who would clear out the misunderstanding wasn't whom I was expecting, I still highly appreciate it nonetheless.
"Stay my spell!? But it's too late!"
Reimu then stepped in. "It's okay. Go ahead and launch it out."
"What!? But-!"
"Just trust me."
"O-okay…" Jessica releases the powerful fireball she'd been charging, making her fall onto the ground by its force as a result.
"Cautionary Border!" and meanwhile, Reimu instantly put up the same blue barrier I saw back at the Waterfall Cave in front of her to safely block the fireball. "See? There we have it." she said with a smile.
However, Jessica didn't reply back as she instead got back up and rushed over to the statue… while rather rudely shoving me aside as I fell to the floor on my hands and knees before I looked up at her with an annoyed expression, even if she wouldn't notice it.
"Alistair! Alistair!" Jessica called out to the statue once she stopped in front of it. "Is that really you?"
"It's me, Jess. You…have to listen to me. As do you travelers…" Alistair said, and as I pushed myself back up on my feet, we all started listening to him carefully. "After I died, a part of my soul…was allowed to linger in this statue." Ah, so that explains it… "Even now as I speak to you… The power keeping me here begins to evaporate… Time is short… Look into the statue's eyes… The truth lies within… Hurry…" And we did it so. "The day I died, the door to the tower was already open. I thought it was strange. So I decided to look around and see for myself. That's when I saw him."
[BGM End]
And all of a sudden… I don't know exactly what happened, but a flash of light struck me…and now I and everyone else found ourselves standing in a monochrome version of the same area, but then we heard footsteps from behind us. We looked back to see a proud young man wearing armor walking in and looking around cautiously… Could that be Alistair? Jessica's gasp was enough to prove it, and then I realized that we're actually witnessing a flashback as spectators. I let everyone else know about it, and so we all just sat back to watch the events unfold in this flashback.
[BGM: Who Knows the Truth? – Ys IX: Monstrum Nox]
After looking around the area in front of him for a bit, Alistair turned around in order to look behind him… and by doing so, a wicked jester suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs. OH, NO… it really was HIM… Dhoulmagus! Then that means… my and Aya's assumption was right; he was the one who killed Alistair after all! Just seeing Dhoulmagus in all his glory, even in a flashback, was enough to send an uncomfortable chill down my spine.
Apparently, Alistair had a feeling that someone was behind him since he quickly turned back in alarm. "Who are you?" he questioned as he reached out for his sword on his hip.
"Such a pity." Dhoulmagus mockingly replied. Ugh, I can't even stand his sickening high nasal voice either…
"Pity…!? What are you talking about? Who are you? Answer me!" Alistair demanded.
"Me? I am Dhoulmagus. And I was referring to the fragility of human life."
"Fragility? What do you mean!?" getting fed up with questioning, Alistair proceeded to draw his sword… but for some strange reason, it wouldn't budge. "My… My sword! I, I can't draw my sword!" he exclaimed as he still kept trying to draw it out.
"I said: such a pity. A terrible pity that a shining young star like you should chance to encounter me." then, Dhoulmagus aimed his scepter at Alistair as its tip glowed… and the latter suddenly found himself paralyzed in place.
"Ngggh!" Alistair grunted. "What have you done…to…me…?" and slowly, Dhoulmagus made his way down the stairs towards Alistair while repeatedly teleporting as he was doing so, until he stopped directly in front of the now helpless young guard. "Dhoulmagus…! I won't…forget this…!" he growled.
"What? You won't forget my name? You're too kind!" Dhoulmagus teased. "I shall return the favour, and remember yours as well. Now. Let us finish this before I feel any more pity…"
"DHOULMAGUS!"
And then, Dhoulmagus at first appeared to be hugging Alistair with one arm… until the jester suddenly impaled him in the torso with the scepter. We all gasped in horror as we watched Alistair gag in pain, and when Dhoulmagus removed the scepter from him, the young guard instantly collapsed to his death.
Dhoulmagus just stood there and stared down at Alistair's corpse, even kneeling down and musing for a bit before saying, "It has been an honour making your acquaintance. You may rest assured, your death will not be in vain." What did he mean by that…? Anyway, Dhoulmagus stood back up and remained silent for a moment… until he burst into wicked and evil laugher, "Ha ha ha! Mua ha ha ha! HA HA HA HA! AH HA HA HA!" and then…he vanished from the spot.
All we could do was stand there in shock and horror, taking in and witnessing the horrible events that unfolded during Alistair's death. I could also see that Yangus, Jessica and the girls looked even more horrified than me, since they're the only ones who didn't know much about Dhoulmagus's evil intentions until now, and thus seeing this flashback was enough to show them just how malicious and heinous this man was, and that he must be stopped at any costs.
[BGM End]
And before we knew it or even had any time to think about that situation, we were suddenly whisked back to the present day; with all the colors back, the night sky outside, and the statue in front of us in flames.
[BGM: Sorrow – Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition]
"And now you have seen what the statue saw, my traveling friends." Alistair said. "I don't understand it myself. But it seems the Statue of Alexandra has been awaiting your arrival. If the memory of my tale can serve you on your quest, it would bring great relief to my soul… My stay here is coming to an end. It's time for us to part…"
"No! Alistair! Don't leave me!" Jessica pleaded, tears escaping from her eyes.
"One final thing, Jess… Mother may try to stand in your way. Nevertheless… Follow your heart, and do as you must. Farewell, my little sister…" then, sparkles surged out of the statue, possibly those being the remains of Alistair's soul, and they drifted off into the air and disappeared… while the fire on the statue was magically put out as well, for some odd reason.
"ALISTAIR!" Jessica screamed before collapsing on her knees and weeping silently, while we stood around her and watched with sad looks.
"What a tragic affair." it was then that Trode spoke from behind us. Wait… Trode? How did he get in here? "There can be no question. This is Dhoulmagus's treachery!"
"COR BLIMEY!" Yangus jumped as he did a… rather hilarious pose, while I and the girls looked completely dumbfounded by Trode's sudden presence.
"Okay… My eyes aren't going crazy on me, are they…?" Reisen blinked. "How did he even…"
However, Trode just continued as if there was nothing crazy about this, "It would appear that Alistair also wishes us to bring Dhoulmagus to justice. His sacrifice shall not be in vain. Now we have yet another reason to stop Dhoulmagus's foul reign of terror… I shall await you by the carriage. Cheerio!" and with that, he left.
We all exchanged odd glances after that, but we decided to just shrug it off and proceeded to make our leave as well. But when it was my turn to go down once everyone else had already done so…
"Um…" Jessica shyly called out to me.
"Yes?" I looked back at her.
"I really must apologize for my behaviour. We'll talk more later, but I need to be alone right now… I'll see you back at the village."
I nodded in understanding. "Right." and right after this reply of mine, Jessica knelt down back on the floor and resumed her sobbing fest. As I turned to leave, I took one final look back at her in pity before finally going down the stairs to meet with the others.
[BGM End]
Once I met back with them, I could see that they were still lamenting about what happened back there. "Poor Jessica… I feel so bad for her right now…" Aya lamented.
"To think that it was Dhoulmagus who killed her brother just like with Rylus…" Alice murmured. "That fiend truly is a despicable and wicked man."
"Yeah, and that's why we must put a stop to him!" Marisa said. "And now we know how he looks like!"
"Problem is, we don't know where he went…again." Remilia pointed out. "Sure, we could consult Kalderasha for this, but I don't think it'll be of much help considering that he already arrived in this place way before we did."
"You have a good point there." Reimu agreed. "Well, there's nothing else we can do in here anymore so let's go back to the village."
"So this means we're going to walk all the way back down again?" Youmu asked.
"Not this time, actually." I finally spoke up after being quiet during this entire conversation, and everyone turned to face me. "Everyone, gather around me." they did it so, and then I thrusted an arm in the air. "Evac!" I shouted, and in an instant, we were all surrounded into a beacon of light before disappearing.
We reappeared just back outside the tower, right at its entrance to be exact. "Uh, what just happened?" Cirno wondered. "How are we back outside?"
"It was the Evac spell." I replied. "Remember that I mentioned what it does back at the Waterfall Cave?"
"Oh yeah, you did!" Reisen said. "So you have learned it now?"
"Yep. Now we can leave any dungeon we go to in an instant! Oh, and that's not the only spell I've just learned…" I thrusted my arm into the air again, while at the same time thinking of Alexandria. "Zoom!" yep, that's right; I also learned the Zoom spell too! And thus, we all rocketed into the sky by a gust of wind.
[BGM: Quiet Village (Night) – Dragon Quest VIII]
In the blink of an eye, we landed right back into the village of Alexandria. "See? I also learned the Zoom spell too!" I winked. "As you can see, it basically has the same function as the Chimaera Wing."
"Wow, that's great!" Marisa exclaimed. "Now I wish I could learn a teleportation spell too…" she said sheepishly while rubbing the back of her head, leading me to chuckle lightly in response.
Now, even though Jessica said to me that she'll see me back here in the village later, it was getting very late and I was feeling pretty exhausted. I guess I'll just have to leave the talking for tomorrow. So I told everyone to head over to the inn for a nice and deserved rest, and there we spotted Bangerz standing in front of the door.
"Oh, you're back! You were ages! I was starting to get worried!" Bangerz exclaimed. "So where's Jessica?" I reported everything to him about what happened back at the tower. "Hmm… Really? So you saw her in the tower? Well, it's not brilliant, but I suppose if she said she was coming back, then that's good enough. Thanks for your help, Eight. You were a bit of a pain at first, but you're pretty sound, I suppose."
"More like YOU were a bit of a pain to me…" I thought slightly annoyed.
"Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I asked at the inn if they'd be able to put you all up for the night. Mash and I put our pocket money together to pay for it. So you'd better not let it go to waste!" Oh… He and Mash were kind enough to pay the inn for us? Huh, I guess I might have judged him too harshly…maybe.
Either way, we all thanked Bangerz for it, and he stepped aside in order to let us in and rest for the night.
[BGM End]
The next day…
[BGM: Quiet Village – Dragon Quest VIII]
This time, we all woke up in the morning at the same time. "*Yawn* That was a good snooze, that was." Yangus said as we stepped out of the inn. "Nuffin' better than finishin' a job, eh!? An' 'avin' yer accommodations paid for don't do no 'arm neither!"
"Yeah!" Aya nodded. "It was pretty nice of Bangerz and Mash to pay the inn for us despite everything that happened before."
Glancing over at the Albert Mansion in the distance and remembering about yesterday, I addressed everyone, "Let's head over to the Albert Mansion. Jessica is probably in there right now." They nodded in response, and we all made our way to the mansion.
The moment we came in, we immediately heard what appears to be bickering coming from the upper floor. Wondering what was going on up there, we proceeded to the upper floor… and we saw that the bickering was coming from Jessica and Rosalind. We stood there surprised, but we made sure to keep our distance from them and listen.
"I'm going to ask you again, Jessica." Rosalind said sternly. "Are you entirely bereft of compassion!? Will you not mourn your own brother's death!?"
Jessica groaned in exasperation. "Not this, again! Of course I'm sad! I can't believe I even have to say it! But all you can think of is tradition and family obligations! I'm talking about avenging his murder!"
"Avenging…?" Rosalind gasped, before retorting in her daughter's face, "You will stop this foolishness this instant! You are a young lady, not a warrior! Do you really think Alistair would have wanted this? You will mourn your brother's death like a proper lady! It's our family's way."
"Our family's way? Who cares about our family's way!? I don't expect you to believe me, but Alistair spoke to me! He told me to follow my heart. That's why my mind is made up. I don't care about the consequences. I'm going to make Alistair's murderer pay."
This earned a frustrated sigh from Rosalind, and she replied harshly, "Very well. It's obvious there's no talking to you. Do as you wish. But… As far as I'm concerned, I no longer have a daughter! I want you out of this house at once!" Oh, ouch…
"Fine! I was planning on leaving until you came to your senses, anyway!" Jessica barked as she stormed away from her mother, heading towards her room that was once again being guarded by Bangerz and Mash. "Bangerz! Mash! Let me through. I'm getting my things!" by this, the two youths instantly stepped aside and Jessica went in before slamming the door shut so hard it made them both jump.
When she came back out, she was now seen wearing a completely different outfit: a long-sleeved purple blouse that showed quite a lot of her cleavage (and I do mean a lot; the entire upper half of her breasts were left exposed), a yellow underbust corset with lacings in the front around her stomach and waist, a long maroon skirt with a white frill at the bottom, and grayish-black pantyhose tucked into short pointed brown boots. Looking closer, I could see that she also had a necklace that matched her earrings and an auburn belt was wrapped around her corset, where a small pouch and a Leather Whip hung from.
"I'm sorry for not telling you the truth before." Jessica apologized to Bangerz and Mash, who had sad looks on their faces, as she knelt down to them. "Forgive me?"
"Are you really leavin', Jessica?" Bangerz crestfalled.
Jessica sighed. "Yeah. I am. And I want you two to watch over the village while I'm gone. Alistair told me this would happen. He said you two would protect the town and grow up to be famous warriors." at this, Mash began to sob quietly. "Come on. Chin up." Jessica softly patted his head, then she stood back up. "Your mission guarding my room is over. I want you to patrol outside from now on!"
"Yes, sir!" Bangerz saluted before he and Mash dashed off… with the latter still letting out more sobs.
After that, Jessica walked back to Rosalind with a hard glare. "Well, I'm leaving! Thanks for being such a great mum! Have a nice life!" she spoke sarcastically, and then she stormed out of the mansion without even batting an eye at us.
Once that commotion was finally over, we all sweatdropped. "Yeesh… Talk about family issues…" Marisa remarked.
"You took the words right out of my mouth." I chimed in.
"She's got a short fuse, ain't she, that Jessica!? Crikey!" Yangus exclaimed. "But ya know, a quick temper'll come back an' bite yer on the bum. That's wot me mum always said. Maybe I'll tell that Jessica bird next time I see 'er!"
"Sooo… what do we do now?" Reisen asked.
"Isn't it obvious? We should go after Jessica!" Cirno replied.
"But we don't even know where she went, though…" Youmu pointed out.
"Hmm…" Alice mused in deep thought, and then she said, "Haven't we come across a branching path on our way to the Tower of Alexandria? Perhaps the other path we didn't take could be where Jessica went."
"Maybe so." Reimu agreed. "What do you say, Eight?" she asked me.
I shrugged. "Well, I can't say for sure if that path is where she headed off to, but it seems to be our only option." and thus I settled it to be where we're going to next. "Let's be on our way, then."
With that, we all left the mansion, ready to go find Jessica… once again.
To be continued…
Yikes... another character death, already. But hey, we now got introduced to Jessica and we also have our very first "Cor Blimey!" moment here too!
Eight: *chuckles* Yeah, true. Definitely the best running gag this story will ever offer.
Well, that's all I have to comment about. Next up is the second boss fight and the reveal of how Yangus joined the party! Until then!