Chapter 48: The First Problem
Just before the Golden Dawn separated into groups and started exploring the 'Temple of Valchronos', the squad had met another Druid who was waiting for them in the middle of the ground floor.
"The inside of this place… hey, Letoile! Doesn't it remind you of that dungeon we explored a few months ago?" Lucas turned to face the Compass mage.
With a look of familiarity, Letoile agreed. "It certainly gives you that type of feel. Let's hope Alecdora can hold his own this time…". She whispered the last part of her sentence, careful to not gain the Sand mage's attention.
The inside of the temple was a large open-plan area that had four huge, marble pillars in a square, giving support and foundation to the ground floor of the building. The colour used to be a sparkling white but over the years it had turned into a pale green colour. Each pillar was surrounded in moss and vines which helped cover the multitude of cracks around each structure. Around the walls, there was a constant flow of foreign letters that were completely different to what the Clover Kingdom had as well as what the Druids had in the Forgotten Forest.
"Wait, who's that over there?" Mimosa pointed to a figure that was stood leaning against one of the marble pillars.
Valmoira was the first to reply and she did so with a smile. "That is the other Druid who will be grouped with one of you. She is my sister!"
Right in the middle of this structured square was a small Druid, around the height of Mimosa. She had bright, red hair that was put into a ponytail at the back of her head, whereas the fringes at the front nearly went over her purple eyes. The girl had a few scars on her face with the most prominent one being a horizontal one across her nose.
As for her clothing, it was similar to a traditional one that any female Druid would wear. She had a dark-green skirt that was made out of a thick leather as well as leaves. She wore open-toed and light-brown shoes with the straps wrapping around her ankles and going up to her legs. A dark-blue pad was the only thing that covered her chest but looking closely at it you can tell that it was reinforced with some metal giving a good protective barrier. Finally, she also had the same type of antlers on her head as Valmoira did.
The girl stopped leaning against the pillar as she heard and saw the people walk in. A look of shock first painted her face which then quickly turned into a look of interest with her eyeing up the humans.
"Yo, you took your time! As soon as you told me there were humans spotted in our home, I knew you would take them here to explore the temple! I left the Master a note which told him I would be here waiting", she giggled and flicked her hair back but it still fell into the same place.
Dike walked forwards and questioned the Druid. "Wait, how would you know that? I had to persuade the Master to use these humans and you are telling me you knew this would happen?"
"Correct! I mean, if you think about it… it makes perfect sense; A temple where our soldiers have gone missing, some humans show up with powerful mana, we cannot explore on our own, and we can order these guys around to do the job… Come on, Dike!" She elbowed the Advisor, knocking him down.
"Haha, that is just like my sister! You really are something, Sallyanne!" Valmoira walked up, putting the girl in a headlock.
Dike cleared his hair from the dirt and stood back up. "Hang on… are you telling me that Master Cathbad knew what to do with these humans and I did not have to go through the trouble of persuading him?" He turned to the large Druid.
The Master raised his muscular arm and scratched the back of his thick neck. "I had the idea to do this anyway but I know how judgemental and proper you are about everything so I wanted to see what your opinion was first", he laughed loudly and it seemed like the dust on the floor started to shake.
Dike dropped his shoulders and his body went into a slouch.
"He sort of… reminds me of Julius's advisor, Marx", William thought in his head with an awkward smile on his face.
While Dike was slouching in defeat, he realised how this was looking to the humans. "Oh no! We cannot show any signs of weakness towards them!" He quickly shot back up and addressed the Golden Dawn.
"N-now that we are all acquainted, one of us will follow each of your four groups. Master Cathbad, if you would go with Vangeance and the lap dog…", he carried on.
"L-Lap dog?! Are you out of your mind?!" Alecdora shouted to which Valmoira hit him on the back of his head, shutting him up.
"Valmoira, join up with the two guys over there. David and Hamon, was it?" He asked.
"That's right! I'm surprised you learned our names so quickly", Hamon replied.
"Well, it is good to form a connection to the ones we hope will sort this mess out for us. Besides, a Druid like myself has no problem with information like this", Dike responded with a smile.
Valmoira twirled her iron spear and smirked. "Sure. I can keep these two men in check and show them up when the going gets tough!"
"Sallyanne, could you go with those two mages, Lucas and Yuno?" Dike asked the soldier who looked quite unimpressed.
Sallyanne stared at the Wind mage and Light mage and stuck her tongue out as if she was going to be sick. "No thank you!"
Everyone started to sweat-drop. They were wondering why she was refusing when she went through the trouble of waiting for them in the first place.
"Sallyanne… what is the matter?" Valmoira asked.
"I would rather go with… let me see…", her eyes wandered from one Golden Dawn mage to the next until they finally landed on the girl with long, vermillion hair.
"Her", she pointed at Mimosa. "She uses Plant Magic, right? I would like to be in their group". Sallyanne walked up to Mimosa and started examining her like she was some sort of book to be studied.
"Um, hello there", Mimosa spoke up with an awkward expression. "How does she know what type of magic I use?"
"Yo, the name's Sallyanne! Nice to meet you", she held out her hand.
Mimosa returned the gesture and shook her hand. "We already knew your name though… like not even two minutes ago", the royal thought. "Nice to meet you too. My name is Mimosa Vermillion", she replied.
"That's some name… I wonder if she's…", Sallyanne thought. She was about to talk against but was stopped by Cathbad.
"I do not see a problem with Sallyanne going with that group of three. This means that Dike will go with the two boys. We have wasted enough time here so we will now be off", the Master instructed.
Cathbad joined up with William and Alecdora, whilst Valmoira, Dike, and Sallyanne, joined up with their respective groups.
There were a set of stairs in each of the four directions in the middle of the room which was perfect for the four groups as they could explore the entire area. They all headed down but just before they did, they noticed that right next to each staircase was a corresponding colour in the shape of a small circle.
William, Alecdora, and Cathbad's staircase had a bright, red colour.
Lucas, Yuno, and Dike's staircase had a glowing, blue colour.
David, Hamon, and Valmoira's was a harsh, purple colour.
Mimosa, Klaus, Letoile, and Sallyanne's staircase had a circle with a soft, green colour.
Sallyanne followed the three Magic Knights in front of her but her eyes were only on Mimosa the whole time. As she would move to the right, so would the Druid. As she moved to the left, she was copied too.
Eventually, the Plant mage turned around and wondered what the deal was with the red-haired Druid.
"Excuse me, Sallyanne, but shouldn't you be leading us through? I thought the Druids know about this temple but we can't really get far if you're not leading us", Mimosa said.
Sallyanne started to pout. "Oh, but it's so fun just watching you humans!"
"Oh? I thought the Druids hated the humans. Your sister said that you're merely using us", Mimosa replied.
Sallyanne picked up the pace and now walked alongside the Plant mage. Klaus and Letoile were slightly behind the two.
"Oh, of course Valmoira would say something like that. It's annoying because she hasn't seen what I've seen so there's a weird difference there", she tried to explain.
"Seen? What do you mean?" Klaus asked.
"Oh, I've visited the Forsaken Realm before!" The Druid started skipping in an upbeat manner.
"You have?!" Mimosa exclaimed. "I thought Druids hated humans so much that they only stayed in their home but you're saying you left the forest?"
Sallyanne sighed as she listened to the royal. "Yeah, we've been told to hate humans because of what happened 500-or-so years ago, but my problem with it is… those humans that did what they did - they aren't you".
The three Magic Knights paused and their eyes were wide with a look of shock. The short while that they've come to the Forgotten Forest had had them treated like animals. The only reason they listened to the Druids, apart from also wanting to find the Magic Stone, was because they had threatened them. However, there was one person here whose way of thinking was completely different.
"So, the reason you think differently is because you've experienced what it's like in the Forsaken Realm?" Letoile asked, leaning in.
"That's exactly right. But I'll leave the explaining for another time", Sallyanne nodded and carried on walking.
"Now that you mention being around humans, is that why you speak a bit differently to the rest of the Druids?" Mimosa asked.
Sallyanne paused and put her finger to her chin as if she was thinking about the question. "I guess you could say that. Is it because I join some words up like humans do, whereas the other Druids would pronounce each word normally?"
"Yeah, I've noticed that too. You say words like 'don't' and 'we've' but the others would say 'do not' and 'we have'", Klaus mentioned, adding his input to the conversation.
The Druid thought about this for a few seconds and then replied. "It could be because of that, but I was only around the humans for at most a day. It's more because I didn't like to listen to what the elders told me. Since I was little, I had a feeling that what they said was quite outdated and I wanted to find my own answers. I guess you could say I'm some sort of a rebel!"
Mimosa and the others smiled. They had found someone that accepted them and didn't judge them at face value.
"You're red hair… it's unnatural, right? The colour is too different from the other Druids who have colours and shades like black, green, and brown.
Klaus butted in and whispered to Mimosa. "Hey! That's a bit rude, Mimosa! You just say whatever is on your mind without thinking!"
It was now Sallyanne's turn to but in and she got close to Klaus and Mimosa. "I can still hear you", she whispered and giggled. "No, it's fine. All of this just interests me since I get to see how different you guys are compared to what we've been taught! Yes, my hair is unnatural. When I was out sneaking around the Forsaken Realm, I ran into this woman with fiery-red hair and she had just beaten up a Magic Boar and was eating its meat. She detected me easily and wanted to fight but after I told her I was just looking around, she told me to hurry along. Just seeing her like that was so cool and I wanted to copy her a bit… and well, my hair colour is the result of that!"
"Wow, that is some story. I wonder who the woman was?" Letoile wondered, looking ahead into the distance.
"Hm, a woman like that only reminds me of... but surely it couldn't be...?" Mimosa tilted her questioning head.
The three got halfway down the hallway after heading down the first staircase and the environment had started to change. The walls had started to slowly flash a soft green colour and a yellow colour from the marble material.
"Hey, look at that", Mimosa pointed around. "There's some writing on the walls but I have no idea what it says. Sallyanne, do you know?"
"This writing… it's ancient and I have no knowledge of what it says. Our own language is completely different to the one the Druids used in the past. It's just died out but the only thing I know is that the Druids of the past used to worship this deity called Valchronos", Sallyanne replied.
"The temple is named after them too. This deity must be a huge influence on them", Letoile added.
"I would think so. It is a shame that our history has been forgotten, but I guess it fits with where we live – the Forgotten Forest!" The Druid laughed.
Eventually, the four mages reached the end of the long hallway and wound up in a large open space. The room was covered in greenery with vines dangling down from the ceiling, as well as plants and weeds sprouting from the floor in all directions. In the middle of the room was a giant plant that looked like it had a mouth with fangs.
"What is this room?" Mimosa asked.
"I actually have no idea. The feeling this room gives is completely different from where we just came from", Letoile replied whilst taking in the scenery.
Klaus had started to walk forwards and realised something important as he called the others over. "Hey, look at the walls and in between all the vines! The lettering has gone but there are pictures and diagrams!"
The Golden Dawn Knights and the Forgotten Forest's Druid all hurried to the wall that Klaus was talking about. The pictures seemed to go in some sort of sequence from left to right.
At the start there was a huge person with two, blue wings that were broken and jagged. The person also had a set of four, black horns. His body was coloured in a black colour but now it had faded into a soft, grey shade. He was sat in some sort of throne with a set of weapons in both of his hands.
"These weapons… I wonder what they were?" Klaus wondered.
"Hm, since it's in the Forgotten Forest could it be a spear or a bow like the Druids use here?" Mimosa replied.
"If you look closely, it looks like there's some sort of handle so it can't be a bow. There's also no iron or sharp head like a spear would have. It's a shame that the picture's so faded that we can't really make out what it is", Letoile mentioned.
"Next to that picture, there are a bunch of people coloured in a green colour on the right. That is probably the Druids from the past worshipping this deity, Valchronos. They have food and gold in their hands so it could have been some offerings", Sallyanne pointed out.
Mimosa gasped at the next picture. "Hey, look at the one after the worshipping Druids. There's a spear going through Valchronos!"
On the next picture, a giant and white spear had gone through the centre of Valchronos. This time, however, he wasn't pictured alone but had another large deity beside him. This time it was a woman with golden-yellow wings that were complete.
"Valchronos's wife or something? But why was there a spear lodged in him?" Klaus looked closely.
"The Druids are still there worshipping, so it could have been a surprise attack? The spear doesn't come from the direction this woman is standing in. Look, she even has her arms around Valchronos", Sallyanne pointed.
The mages took a step back and saw that there were no more pictures that told the story. A part of them was slightly disappointed but that feeling was abruptly forgotten with what happened next.
A sound of teeth grinding could be heard from the middle of the room. The level of the noise started of quietly but it eventually became louder and almost unbearable. The source of the noise was from the giant plant in the middle grinding its teeth together.
"What on earth is this plant?! Is it alive?" Mimosa shouted in confusion. The plant was moving its head as if it was in pain and the grinding of teeth was part of it.
"It's called a Carnivorous Fly Trap. You can tell by the name that it is a huge problem… I thought it was dead since its head was bloated and drooping to the floor!" Sallyanne took a step back.
"A plant can't be that much of a problem! Should we destroy it?" Klaus asked.
"That is one way to go about it. Sure, go for it!" The Druid shouted.
The Fly Trap had opened its mouth and a purple substance started to leak out. It's dark and black mouth looked like an abyss if you were to look into it and that worried the mages.
"Steel Magic: Blazing Spiral Lance!" Klaus called out as a rotating steel tool formed in front of him. He extended it towards the body of the man-eating plant and pierced its body.
"Looks like it's my turn! Compass Creation Magic: Needle Storm!" An army of compass needles formed in front of the noble and she fired the attack out, aiming for the plant's head. She succeeded as the attack punctured its head and it fell to the floor in a heap.
"Wow, that was amazing!" Mimosa praised, clapping her hands together.
Sallyanne didn't react to the two nobles as she continued to examine the fallen plant. "It was surely dead so why did it do all that? I'm never wrong when it comes to plants!"
Suddenly, another set of noises started to emerge from the plant as it got back up. This time, all it did was open its mouth and the entire plant exploded in a flood of green goo. The floor was stained by this substance and as vision cleared, what replaced the Carnivorous Fly Trap was a set of two Druids.
"There were Druids inside of the plant?!" Klaus shouted.
"It looked like they had been eaten then? Or was it the fact that they were just hiding from us?" Letoile raised a point.
"These are a few of the soldiers that went missing! But… they look completely different!" Sallyanne declared, taking her grimoire out of her satchel that was around her dark-green skirt. A spell book with a three-leaf clover started floating. It had patterns of green vines and plants embroidered on the cover.
The soldiers were moving erratically, like no human or druid ever would. They were dragging their feet along the grassy floor and their arms were broken in places yet they didn't scream in pain or agony. Their fingernails were black with a glowing green outline and their chests were wrapped in glowing green vines. Finally, their faces were the most disfigured. They had plants growing out of their heads with mushrooms swarming the inside of their frothing mouths and going down their throats.
"What on earth… what could have done this to them?" Letoile stepped back. Her throat was dry as she was sweating a lot.
"The energy source?" Klaus mentioned. "It's the only thing I can think of!"
"Well, whatever the case… I think it's time to put them to sleep!" Sallyanne's grimoire flicked through its pages.
Mimosa waved her arms and ran in front of the Druid. "W-wait! Aren't they your friends, the people you've been with all this time? If you do this then they won't come back!"
"Mimosa, look at them. Are you seriously saying they could be saved? Their insides are infested with fungi!" Sallyanne shouted, her expression growing angry for the first time since they've met.
"We have to try! I can't just stand here and watch you potentially kill off your friends without even trying to help them… it's just not something I can be apart of. If there is even a possibility of saving them then it's my obligation to do so as a Magic Knight!" Mimosa shouted back, returning the same expression.
Sallyanne was taken aback. "This girl is different for sure… It looks like I'll get to see her magic in action too!" The Druid composed herself and stood next to the royal. "Fine. What do you suppose we do?"
Mimosa had to think of something quick as the two plant-infested Druids were closing in. Thankfully, they were walking slowly since they were taken over, but the mage still had to figure out a plan.
"Their mana seems to be very powerful so we should do a two-on-one! Klaus and Letoile, could you focus on the left one? Sallyanne and I will get the one on the right. Remember, do not injure them to the point where we can't do anything for them! Incapacitate them as well as you can and then we'll go from there!" The Plant mage ordered. She instructed the other two Golden Dawn members with her hands whilst she took her own grimoire out with her right hand.
"You got it, Mimosa!" Klaus and Letoile replied, their grimoires floating at the ready.
The Vermillion turned to her partner for this battle. "So, what magic do you use?"
"My magic? I think it's better if I just show you!" The purple-eyed Druid lunged forward and as she bent her knees to run, Mimosa saw two leg braces that held two small weapons which the girl reached out and grabbed.
Sallyanne took the weapons and jumped in the air. They were small knife-like tools with a small handle wrapped in a thin, white thread and had a sharp, triangular blade on the top. The Druid started to fall towards her enemy and called out her magic.
"Plant Magic: Status – Sleep!" Sallyanne swung her twin weapons and slashed the enemy in front. However, even though the slash was across the body, no blood came out and the wound was instead covered in white flower petals. A little, white aroma came from the petals and the enemy Druid breathed it in, falling on its back and closing his eyes.
"Woah… you use Plant Magic too and it can do something like that?!" Mimosa was wowed. Her own Plant Magic doesn't have any destructive capabilities yet this Druid's easily took care of the enemy in one short swipe.
Sallyanne walked back, putting her weapons back in their braces. "I picked you to follow since I wanted to see what your own Plant Magic could do. Sorry for taking the initiative here… it kinda ruined my plan!" She giggled.
Mimosa sweat-dropped, however the sight of the Druid's Plant Magic stayed in her mind.
Just to the left, Klaus and Letoile were busy fighting their own enemy but were having a tougher time. The Steel mage was trying to push the enemy back with his Blazing Spiral Lance but he found it hard to avoid piercing the Druid's body. Letoile, on the other hand, was also trying her best but the magic the enemy used was messing with her own.
"Klaus, how do we do this?! This thing is using some sort of fungus to attack and its spores keep getting in the way of my own magic!" Letoile asked, panicking.
The enemy Druid opened its mouth and while the language was completely foreign to them, they knew that a magic spell was coming since a torn grimoire started floating next to the soldier.
A cloud of yellow spores emerged from in front of the soldier and started floating towards Klaus and Letoile. The mushrooms in the Druid's mouth started to glow too and this gave the yellow spores a boost in speed which made them easily surround the two nobles.
"Compass Magic: Polar Onslaught! How about I use the spell I used against Brocklan? Hey, Klaus, do something about these spores and I'll quickly deal with this enemy!" Letoile summoned two towers above and below the enemy. The Druid started to float in between and then hundreds of different-sized needles came out firing from the north and south directions.
"I'll be careful to not let these kill you, but I will be able to stop you from moving around… that is if my theory is correct", the light green-haired mage spoke.
The needles all fired down and up towards the enemy and instead of hurting it in any fatal areas, they targeted the plants growing on top of its head as well as the mushroom that had taken over the Druid's mouth.
Klaus was busy trying to get rid of the yellow spores. His basic spells weren't working and the mage clenched his fists. "Looks like I'll have to bring my contraption out!"
The blue-haired mage stepped backwards and his grimoire flicked to a different page. "Yes, this is what should work! Steel Magic: Blazing Spiral Lance – Double!" Instead of only using one lance, he formed two separate lances on his arms and poked them both into the cloud of spores.
The spinning motion from the spell helped disperse the fungal cloud that was coming towards them and directed the remaining spores back at the enemy who was busy getting attacked by Letoile's needles.
Klaus and Letoile were now safe from the spores and the Compass mage had managed to incapacitate the enemy Druid. As he landed on the floor, the plant on its head fell off and crumbled into nothingness as if it wasn't really a physical object but something made from magic. The mushroom in its throat had also undergone the same process and the enemy Druid started to cough.
Mimosa and Sallyanne had seen how well the others did and ran across to meet them. However, as they got close, Sallyanne paused and turned to the coughing Druid who had been stopped. She knelt down and got close to it to hear what they were saying.
As the female Druid got down, her eyes widened with shock as she realised what they were telling her. She quickly got up and walked to the others.
"We need to get out of here, now!" The redhead instructed, sweat dropping from her head.
"Wh-why? Aren't there more of your friends we need to stop?" Mimosa asked, confused as to what was going to happen.
"We can't… not anymore. The others have been…!" She began to explain but stopped as she heard a loud sound come from both of the fallen Druids who they had stopped.
"Again?" Letoile said as she got ready for round two.
"I thought we beat them!" Klaus shouted, also getting ready.
The two enemy Druids who were on the floor slowly started to get up from the floor and the next thing they did was turned their heads to each other and got closer and closer until their two bodies were touching each other. Then, they started to merge with their patchy, green skin dissolving into each other. Their heads became one with a large mouth and three eyeballs and their height grew triple their original size. Their arms remained two as well as their legs but the sheer size of this new abomination was something extraordinary.
"They're beyond saving…", Sallyanne gawked at the newly-formed monstrosity.
"Is a Magic Stone really capable of something like this? Aren't the Black Bulls also dealing with a Magic Stone too?! Is this really… something we can beat?!" Klaus shouted, panicking.
Mimosa looked in horror. This was the amalgamation of the two Druids she had hoped to save but since they became this, there was little to no hope remaining.
"We… can still save them!" Mimosa shouted, her eyes watering. She wasn't crying but the disgusting smell of the beast had begun to spread in the air.
"Are you serious, Mimosa? Perhaps it could have been done in their normal forms but this is…!" Sallyanne protested.
The monstrous abomination then lifted its right leg off the ground and slammed it down on the ground near both Klaus and Letoile. With a force like that, it easily tore a hole through the floor where the two nobles were standing and they fell and slid down the dark hole.
"Klaus, Letoile!" Mimosa tried to rush across to where her teammates once were but all she could see was a black abyss.
Sallyanne grabbed the Plant mage and pulled her back. "They'll be fine! Their magic is powerful enough and their minds are strong enough to get out of whatever situation they're in! We have a job to do here and it's to defeat this thing!"
This time Mimosa's eyes watered from her sadness as for a split second she thought the worst had happened to Klaus and Letoile. However, Sallyanne's words made her realise she needed to think hopefully and now focus on this new threat.
Mimosa was stood on the left as Sallyanne was stood on the right. They both got ready with their grimoires and stances. The Vermillion had her head down and she grinded her teeth together.
"I cannot be useless this time! I simply refuse to believe I cannot do anything in offence! This time… for sure!"
NOTES:
Hope you enjoyed that chapter as the arc really started going!
I plan to give all of the Golden Dawn members here a good amount of 'screen'/page? Time :P As I like them all. Letoile is my favourite out of the side characters but they will all see some development! Mimosa had been on the side for too long, especially during the whole Nean cave arc but this time…!
A bit of history and lore here and there for this mysterious Valchronos. What did you think?
It's slightly hard to describe what I wanted to with how those 'enemy' Druids looked like but I think I did it well? They were basically taken over by plant life and all signs are pointing towards this Magic Stone. What do you think happened?
