Seen from a bystander's perspective, everything was over in a few seconds. The men attacking the creature resumed after being shocked into a standstill for a moment, but the creature responded with letting out a fire breath, way larger and more powerful than anything should be coming from a creature of that size. The men were all burnt to death in a few seconds, their skin burnt off, leaving a group of crimson-red corpses. The creature then stood and looked around defiantly, and after seemingly seeing nothing drawing it's ire, turned back into the boy which had originally transformed into the creature, the boy having a look of conflicted feelings on his face.
"What? I… I what? Why did I transform into that creature again?" Was the first coherent thought Teepo had after transforming back.
"Did I really do this?" Teepo stared in shock and disbelief at the corpses.
Teepo racked his mind frenetically, trying to get a grip on how he had felt while he had been transformed. The transformation had only lasted for about half a minute, so there wasn't much to go on. What he remembered was a feeling of heightened impulses and stronger sensations of feeling, yet he was still in control, at least enough so that he had purposefully been able to retaliate at the bandits, even if he didn't know just how devastating his attack was going to be. While he tried to use the memory of his transformation to will himself to transform again, he was unable to. Sighing, he resigned himself to trying to remember the transformation as vividly as possible.
"I wouldn't have killed them if I didn't need to, but they had it coming for them sooner or later anyway. Serves them right." Teepo glared angrily at the corpses.
"With that power, maybe I could kill Balio and Sunder. Well, if I manage to transform again." Teepo's expression shifted from a brief grin to a frown.
"If I wanna do that I'll still need to go Genmel. Time to get moving again. Hopefully figure out how to transform at will along the way. Worst case scenario I can probably just stab myself or something." Teepo spun around and started walking down the bridge, like he had been doing before he got attacked.
"Except I can't just leave those corpses there. What to do?" Teepo walked over to the corpses, puckering his nose at the smell of burnt meat.
"Fine! I give you all a proper burial!" he exclaimed angrily after thinking for a few minutes.
"They deserve that much, and I should probably bury them just so noone else sees them. Goddess knows I'm already in enough trouble." Teepo muttered to himself.
Teepo got going with the burial, and dragged the corpses down to the riverbank, where he started digging. He didn't have a shovel with him, so he had to dig with his bare hands. Thankfully the riverbank soil was soft, so it was a fully possible to dig a hole big enough to put all five corpses in. Still, it was a slow and ardous process, It had been afternoon when the battle happened, and when Teepo was finished with covering up the hole, it was evening and he decided he was too tired to continue travelling today. He made up camp, being in a bitter mood.
"Why did I even bother digging that hole? Should have just thrown the corpses in the river." Teepo shaked his head.
"I just killed five people." Teepo stared blankly into the campfire.
"… Why do I feel like crying? I did nothing wrong, they were bad people who wanted to harm me." Teepo continued staring into fire, a lone tear making it's way down his cheek.
"They were still people, I guess that's why."
"Well, killing Balio and Sunder should be easier on my conscience. I think."
"I'm done crying after that night in Wyndia." Teepo wiped the single tear from his face, and then sat there for a bit more. He was tired though, so he rather quickly went and put out the fire, and then went to sleep.
Teepo got going again the next morning, being more wary of other travelers on the road. Thankfully, he was just left alone, and didn't bother trying his luck chatting up any travelers either. And so he walked, while also trying to think of what he would do when he arrived at Genmel, but eventually concluding that that was a problem for later. When he stopped for a break he had an important realization.
"I let out a fire breath when I transformed, does this mean I'm part of the brood? I mean, what else could I be?"
Teepo suddenly remembered various fragments of how he had heard the Brood were evil. While Yraal was kind of a backwater region, the tales of how the Brood had waged war against the world were known everywhere in the civilized world.
"Wait, am I evil? I don't think so, I don't feel I have done anything wrong."
"Or wait, maybe I killed five people yesterday. How could I forget? Maybe there's something to those tales after all."
"I don't have a clean slate otherwise either." Teepo's mind started spiraling, digging up all the morally questionable things he had done, of which there was a fair amount due to him being a thief. Over the next few minutes he grew hysteric as his mind kept spiraling. The spiral soon stopped though, and Teepo took a few deep breaths and calmed himself.
"Well, at least not more than I have needed to. I can't be blamed for defending myself when I get attacked or working to get by, right? Even if that working happens to be stealing." Teepo justified his behaviour to himself, rather successfully so.
"The Brood being evil is just some old mumbojumbo from several ages ago anyway, since when do I care about that crap. Although maybe I will find out more about the brood later, I am travelling after all." Teepo let out a moderately forced laugh, and then moved on, deciding that even if he didn't feel quite sure about the situation with him being brood, it would be better to just keep moving and öeave the thinking about the implications of him being brood for later.
At nightfall Teepo went off from the main road, setting up camp in an as secluded area as he could. He wanted to try transforming again. Trying to summon up how he had felt during the transformation, the heightened instincts and feelings, the slightly dulled sense of how his actions would work out. Teepo altered his mental state, and … nothing. He sat like that for several minutes, stopping due to frustration. He briefly glanced at his sword, feeling frustrated enough that he considered stabbing himself with it for a moment to see if that would work again. Something told his intuition that that wasn't going to do the trick though, and he would instead have a bleeding wound he wouldn't be able to treat. Begrudgingly he decided that he should quit trying for the day, and went to bed, his grumpy mood keeping him awake for a while.
He walked another day, stopping to take a break and fish a little, other than that he just walked. He arrived outside Genmel by evening, deciding to set up camp a good distance from the town, he wanted to try to transform again. As he had walked he had tried how to think of he could transform, because as he thought a bit more about what he had heard about the ancient brood, (much as he insisted to himself he didn't care much about all that old humbug) they definitely didn't have trouble transforming, so it couldn't be that difficult, he figured. Teepo certainly didn't lack self-confidence. He set up camp, and got to experimenting.
"Ok, so maybe I should just try breathing fire, gotta be a dragon to do that, right?" Teepo promptly went ahead and tried, feeling a bit silly for trying to breathe fire while still just being in his human form….. but transform he did, becoming the small dragon whelp again, and letting out a stream of fire. A surprised expression was visible on the whelp's face after that, lasting until Teepo transformed back a minute later, unsure of exactly what he did to transform back, if he did anything at all.
"I can't believe that worked. That's stupid. Well, whatever it works. Should probably try transforming a few times more to make sure I get the hang of it. Not now though, geez I feel way more tired than the last time I transformed. Although I was about to go to sleep anyway I guess, whatever."
Teepo woke up next morning with an idea he wanted to check. He tried to do a claw swipe as he would do it if he was a dragon whelp, and indeed he transformed again. Satisfied, he turned back shortly after.
"Alright, so if I try to do something as a dragon I'll transform. Works for me, and hey, practice makes perfect right, so I should get better at transforming as I go. Not like there's anything wrong with how I transform right now." Teepo summarized, resisting the urge to stroke his ego too much.
Walking into Genmel, the first thing that hit Teepo was the smell, which was a mix of alcohol and vomit. Looking over to the side of the gate he had entered through, he saw a obviously drunk grassrunner of the canine variant sitting leaning against the wall, holding a bottle looking like he was about to pass out at any moment.
"*hic* Hello schtranger, w-w-what can I help you with?*hic*" The grassrunner slurred.
"Why do you want to help me?" Teepo asked, feeling a bit wary of strangers talking to him after being attacked a few days earlier, the grassrunner not exactly seeming trustworthy either.
"*hic* Maybe luck w-w-w-ill schine on me if I help schomeone, could r-r-really use schome of that right now*hic*." The grassrunner tried a smile.
"Well….." Teepo considered his options, he did want information, but at the same time he also felt like backpedaling out of this conversation and the town itself.
"*hic* Ya th-th-think I'm gonna narc on ya?*hic* Five zchenyy schays I f-forget you within t-ten minutes.*hic* The grassrunner took a swig from his bottle as if to reinforce his point.
"Well then, do you know where Balio and Sunder are?" Teepo asked lowering his voice a bit, not wanting any random bystanders to hear the conversation.
"*hic* Schunder w-went up to Mt. B-b-boumore to l-look for sc-schome bratsch,*hic* Balio schould be h-here schomewhere.*hic* Kid l-like you schould schtay a-a-away from them t-though*hic*." The grassrunner failed to pick up on the cue that he should lower his voice.
"Thanks for the advice. Goodbye, and good luck to you." Teepo waved and walked away, to try and find a quiet spot to plan what to do next.
"Good that they are separate right now. Should make killing them easier." Teepo looked around to make a note of his surroundings.
"Well, I ain't finding whichever one Balio was in this mess. Or well, maybe, he does stick out in a crowd, he was the white one I think, I'm not sure though. Not like that matters, I know them both when I see them and they both should die." Teepo internally growled.
Teepo then was hit by a sudden insight.
"Uugh! There's way too much people here! I can't transform unless I wanna risk burning a gazillion random people! Or being seen as a dragon by them!" Teepo groaned frustratedly.
"Could go look for Sunder instead I guess, should be less people up on a mountain. Where is Mt. Boumore is the question. Should go look for some place that sells maps I guess. And then leave, this place gives me a bad feeling." Teepo started walking at a brisk pace.
Teepo got to his plan and started looking around for a place where he could buy some maps. After looking around for half a hour or so he was able to find a Manillo who was willing to sell him maps for Central and Eastern Wyndia. Along the way Teepo almost got in a scuffle with a guard outside the arena entrance, after Teepo had almost wandered inside it, not knowing what the building was, but the guard was willing to turn a blind eye with a small bribe. After that Teepo was happy to leave Genmel, and head to Mt. Boumore, which apparently was more or less due east of the town.
The climb up Mt. Boumore was nothing special. Compared to Mt. Myrneg Mt. Boumore was steeper, and the local monsters were tougher, but all in all the experience of the slow, winding walk up a mountain was the same. Teepo did have a close call with a group of orcs once, but for most battles the possibility to turn into a dragon, even if he opted to not transform in a particular battle was enough to give him a decent safety margin he hadn't really had before, even though his dragon powers didn't lay waste to monsters as effectively as it had dine against the bandits that had attacked him. Teepo also soon learned that transforming every battle would very quickly leave him very tired, after he had gotten a bit over-enthusiastic with using his dragon powers to lay waste to monsters that weren't even directly in his path. After a few hours, at which point it was almost night, while he was nowhere close to the peak, or crossing the mountain, he did arrive at a cabin, the cabin having several chunks of neatly cut stone in front of it.
"Hmm… A quarry? Whatever, that doesn't matter, maybe they have seen Sunder. Well, if there is anyone in that tiny shack at all. If there is noone there I can sleep there unbothered instead. Win-win."
Teepo checked the door, and to his surprise, it wasn't locked. There was a man sitting inside.
"Hey kid, whatcha doing up here?" The man said calmly.
"I'm looking for Sunder, do you know where he went?"
"Sunder came by here and then left across the mountain a few days ago, was looking for some kids. Don't know why a kid like you would want to go look for him, but sure, you do you. Heck, I'll let you use the lift, Sunder prolly wants me to send all kids crossing this area right now to him. Tomorrow though, riding the lift when it's dark outside is begging for an accident. You can stay in the room in the back for the night."
"Um, thanks." Teepo responded awkwardly after a little bit, unsure of how to feel about everything that had been said. Then a small flash of hope struck his mind.
"Hey, if those kids also crossed by here, could you tell me how they looked?" Teepo asked, trying to make it sound as a question out of idle boredom and curiosity.
"Some blue-haired lad who looked kinda like you and some blonde lass wearing a pink dress. How so?" The man replied, raising an eyebrow.
"Just curious." Teepo tried to keep his facial expression as that of boredom.
"Well, that's none of my business anyway. You really should go sleep now." The man grunted.
As Teepo went into the backroom he was a bit disappointed upon not seeing any kind of mattress, but it wasn't really something that could be expected he reasoned, so he wasn't too miffed in the end, he had had worse at times when he slept outdoors. Trying to sleep, the descriptions of the kids that the mason had given him lingered in his mind. Blue was an uncommon hair color, and Ryu did look kind of similar to him. Teepo wasn't able to think of a reason why he would have gone up here though, let alone with some unknown girl. As such, Teepo once again reminded himself that Ryu was likely dead, and that he should just move on. Still, he wasn't quite able to suppress the part of himself that wanted to believe that Rei and Ryu might not be dead.
"You awake? Get moving then, I'll activate the lift for you, but then I want to get back to work." The mason grunted as he saw Teepo waking up.
The lift was a platform connected to a horizontal cable suspended between two parts of the mountain. The man activated the lift as he said he would and then left, and Teepo got onto the platform. The lift ride had nothing unexpected happen, so Teepo just sat back and enjoyed the scenery. A little bit later Teepo disembarked at the other side, and got going again. The trip down the mountain on this side was more perilous than the climb up the other side had been, as the terrain was a lot steeper, with quite many sheer cliffsides and scarps, but Teepo took it slowly and carefully, and by evening he was at the foot of the mountain, unharmed. He set up camp, and thought over what to do next.
"Um, do I know where Sunder went in more detail than just crossing Mt. Boumore?" Teepo proceeded to recount all the information he had in his head.
"Shit! I don't! Well, um… Let's check my maps, maybe this area is kind of a dead end." Teepo pulled out a map of Central Wyndia, looked at it, realized crossing Mt. Boumore put him in Eastern Wyndia, then pulled out that map instead, and took a look at it.
"Let's see… The road continues from here all the way up until about the plant, whatever that place is, and then joins the large road connecting Wyndia and the Rhapala region. Ugh, Sunder could have gone lots of different places, but most likely is that he just followed the road I think, so I'll do that as well. And if I lose the trail I was planning to travel the world anyway, guess I'll go to Rhapala then, haven't been there unlike Wyndia, there's not really anything here in Eastern Wyndia I want to check out. Well, going by the map anyway, the places marked out seem lame."
Teepo set off along the road, and two days later arrived at a tower. While Teepo had initially dismissed going to the tower when looking at it on the map, the tower looked a lot more interesting in person, and after thinking it over a bit he decided that it couldn't hurt to ask someone there if they had seen Sunder.
As Teepo got to the tower he saw a manillo sitting at the base of the tower. Shrugging, Teepo made his way over to the manillo, feeling confident that the manillo would be willing to share information, even if it took a small sum of zenny. Teepo still felt more wary of people than he had used to, but manillo weren't known for being violent, so he felt it should be safe.
"Hey, have you seen Sunder?" Teepo realized as he said that that there was no guarantee this person, or anyone else he asked knew who Sunder was, especially as he was getting further away from Genmel.
"Who's Sunder?" The manillo asked in response, as to confirm his previous thought.
"Dude looks like a horse that walks upright, other than that he has brown skin and a green mohawk." Teepo answered confidently, the appearance of them both deeply ingrained in his mind ever since the day when he and his brothers had first gotten attacked by them.
"Ah, one of those. See, I'm just a humble merchant, so if you want information, you will have to pay me for it, yes?" The manillo yawned.
"How much?"
"100 zenny" The manillo replied.
"80 zenny" Manillos were known worldwide for being willing to haggle, so Teepo thought he would take a shot.
"90 zenny"
"You know I could just ask someone else here, right?"
"You say that kiddo, yet I still saw you walking straight to me. 85 zenny, and that's as low as I go."
"Fine. Take your zenny. Here." Teepo noted an orc stumbling out of the tower.
"Alright, pleasure doing business. Now for your answer: No, I haven't seen any horsemen around here." The manillo answered with a remarkably straight face.
"Listen here you little-" Teepo took a few deep breaths. "Alright fine, whatever. Have you seen a blue-haired boy passing by here?"
"That'll be 15 zenny for that information."
Teepo let out a low growl, then sighed exasperatedly and handed the zenny over.
"I did actually see a blue-haired boy a few days ago, he went into the tower, I didn't see him come out though, so if he came out I don't know how he did it."
"Hmm. Well bye." Teepo flipped the bird at the manillo as he walked away.
"Alright, so that blue-haired boy went into the tower, huh. But he hasn't come back out yet. Well, there were monsters inside the tower it looked like, so the guy is probably dead. Very unlikely that boy was even Ryu to begin with. No sense in climbing a monster infested tower if I have no reason to, so back to travelling along the road it is." Teepo thought as he left the the tower and took a small break.
"Man, I really should work on keeping my hopes down. Shouldn't waste money on info for chasing a pipe dream." Teepo let out a large sigh, and then laid on the ground staring blankly into the sky.
Teepo soon set off along the road yet again, and after two days arrived at a coffee shop. It wasn't a particular destination he had, as he doubted Sunder would stop by the coffee shop, but Teepo wanted to take a break anyway, so he stopped there. Teepo's intention was simply to buy something to drink, which he did, a cup of coffee, but then he overheard a conversation which caught his interest.
"Hey, why is there so many people here?"
"Haven't you heard? Road to Wyndia is blocked."
"Really? By who? Why?"
"Don't remember the name, but it was some horseman mobster."
"One really would think that the king would order the army to clear up a major roadblock like that. But what can you expect from them useless royals."
"Yeah, I dunno. Nothing we can do about the matter anyway, so just sit back and relax." The person let out an audible sigh.
Teepo finished drinking his coffee, and made his way outside to consider the new information.
"Can't think of anyone else who would be selfish enough to block all traffic on a major bridge like that, and the description also fits. Gotta be Sunder. Or Balio, but whatever. I'm gonna go check it out in any case. Also, coffee is yuck. Don't understand why grownups like it."
Teepo travelled there as planned, and arrived a few days later. He was surprised to find that the bridge wasn't blocked at all, which also left him at a loss of what to do.
"Why do I expect random people to know what they are talking about. The blockade could have been cleared up since I heard about it I guess, doesn't help with deciding what to do."
Teepo took a look around the area and gathered his thoughts.
"Can't see any tracks or anything to follow. So whoever of Balio and Sunder was here could be anywhere right now. Maybe they went back to Genmel actually? Well, I'm not going there again, that place can screw itself, and transforming there still seems like a bad idea. Well, time to check my map and decide where to go next." Teepo pulled out the map of Eastern Wyndia.
"Let's see… Have I really been almost everywhere in Eastern Wyndia already? Sure looks like it. Haven't gone to the plant yet, but I don't have any reason to, and wasn't that the place with the weird crops? I'm not in the mood for some freaky veggies. What else… haven't visited the yggdrasil tree yet, but who cares about some old tree. That leaves going east to the Rhapala region, so I'll do that."
Teepo went back the same road he had traveled the previous few days, feeling annoyed at the waste of time. Still, after a few days he was back at the coffee shop, which he ignored this time, and after a few days more he arrived at the border checkpoint to the Rhapala region.
"Halt! Show your passport!" The two guards stopped Teepo as he tried walking throught the checkpoint gate.
"Uhm, uuuuuuh, what passport?" Teepo had not considered the possibility of needing a passport at all, so he was genuinely flabbergasted.
"You need a passport issued by the king if you want to pass this border. If you don't have one, then you can't cross. Sorry, but that's just how it is."
Thinking quickly, Teepo came up with a lie on the spot.
"Ah yes, how did I forget? All this travelling is really tiring. Don't worry, I do have a passport, I just forgot it in my room inside the inn." Teepo tried to put on a wining smile, the guards' expressions were blank.
"Hey, do you allow travelers across at night by the way?" Teepo continued, trying to keep his expression and voice as neutral as possible now.
"No, the border is closed at night."
"Alright then, maybe best that I stay here for the night then. Geez, if I am tired enough that I forgot about the passport I really should get some sleep."
"Sure seems that way. Good night in that case, and I'll expect to see you tomorrow."
"Yeah, good night." Teepo nodded his head and walked away.
Teepo made his way inside the checkpoint inn, wanting to get out of sight from the guards, and find a spot to think over what to do.
"Damn, those guards really believed my lie. Dumb as bricks, but hey, I shouldn't complain. Alright, just gotta find someone staying here who actually has a passport, and steal it. Easy." Teepo grinned.
"Sure hope those passports don't have any kind of identification thingamajig, I'm screwed in that case." Teepo winced. "Well, I'll find that out then. For now, I should actually get some sleep."
Teepo woke up a few hours later, smiling as he saw the moonlight coming in through the window. His smile vanished as he realized that he had no idea what room would be the best target, and that he would likely have to go through the trouble of lockpicking every door he wanted to check. He let out a sigh, and then got started checking every room in case anyone had forgotten to lock their door. It turned out that while one person had, Teepo was unable to find a passport upon closer inspection of the room, so he would have to start to try to lockpick one door or another soon.
Teepo didn't really have much lockpicking skill beyond putting a pick in the hole and waggling it around and hoping that that would do the job, as Rei always had been the one to pick locks when necessary. Still, Teepo couldn't really think of any other options, so his meager lockpicking skills it was. Teepo briefly went outside to fetch a twig, taking care to not be seen by anyone, which he proceeded to carve with his sword into a roughly key sized and shaped wood splinter. Satisfied with the final product, he got to trying it out. Which went poorly. He tried picking the lock on every room, spending a few minutes on each, but to no avail. He was about ready to give up, when he remembered that there might be a master key he could get his hands on.
Of course, a master key would probably be kept in a secure location itself, but his attempts at lockpicking had failed, so that was the best option he could think of. After a bit of thinking he concluded that the innkeeper most likely kept an eventual master key with him. So Teepo went down to the innkeeper's own room, which to his dismay also was locked. This time however, he actually succeeded in picking the lock, and so he was inside. The innkeeper was asleep thankfully, so Teepo got to searching the room, quietly. After a bit of digging around, he found a key hidden under some miscellaneous junk in a drawer. He sneaked out into the corridor, closed the door carefully behind him, and tested it on one regular room door, and then on another. The key worked on both. Satisfied, Teepo nodded and went to investigate some rooms. The first room contained a sleeping highlander, who didn't have any visible personal possessions, so Teepo deemed it unlikely he would manage to find a passport in there. The second room was fruitful however. In the room there was a sleeping shell clansman, who had seemingly just shoved his belongings under the bed. Teepo decided the risk was worth it, and crawled under the bed. He found a passport in a bag, and crawled back out, bumping rather loudly into a wall in the process, but the shell clansman seemingly didn't wake up.
As Teepo got out of the room he made sure to lock all doors he had unlocked, and to sneak back and return the master key, and then he went outside. Teepo wasn't exactly sure what the border guards classified as night and day, but the sun had started rising, so even if they considered it too early he would have a good excuse, he thought as he stepped outside the inn. He felt very anxious about the possibility of the person he had stolen the passport from finding out, so he just wanted to leave as soon as possible. As he approached the guards they stopped him.
"Halt! Ah, it's you. Well, do you have your passport now?" The guard stifled a yawn.
"Yes, here it is." Teepo pulled out the passport, putting on a smile he wasn't really feeling.
"Alright, let's see… that's the royal seal alright. Everything should be in order then. Safe travels." The other guard said, and then they both moved away from the passage.
"Thanks."
Teepo walked away quickly onto the long bridge beyond the checkpoint, wanting to put some distance between himself and the inn. And so he continued his journey.