Been a while, hasn't it?
Shall we begin once more?
Apocrypha - Book 2: War
"Ahem," a voice coughed out as an androgynous, bespectacled person with bright-magenta bob hair walked towards the spotlight cast in the complete darkness, carrying a massive tome under his arm.
As he stepped into spotlight, a wooden stool materializes from under his own shadow. Upon taking a seat, he places his book onto his laps before opening the first page.
"Before the dear readers begin in this new tale of magic, chaos and a fuckton of overly-violent ways to die," the figure pointed out as he licked his thumb, "shall I fill in the uninformed first of what happened prior?"
No one says a word.
"I'll take the silence as a 'yes'," he replied as he then flipped to the next page, the first scene depicting an archaic mural of two boys standing next to each other.
"There was once two boys, raised as brothers under the same roof, with whom none knew of their lineage," he narrated before turning to the next page, depicting one on the right bathed in light while the other was surrounded in darkness, "one was blessed with great power, declared as a symbol of hope. The other, ridiculed as a fool for thinking he would be the one."
The next pages shows them both confronting a towering figure with a shadow of a serpent behind his terrible form.
"When the two were confronted by a great villain, the boy of light faced him while the others fled," he continued to narrate, "the boy of shadows came to the boy of light's rescue," he stated as he placed his thumb on the corner of the page, "but alas..."
The narrator turns to the next page, the serpent sinking its fangs into the boy of shadow's heart before the vicegrip snapped its prey in two before the boy of lights very eyes.
"... His sacrifice was in vain," he solemnly stated as the narrator eyed to the adjacent page depicting the boy of light expelling the villain with the slain boy of shadow behind him, "for rather than inspire with strength, the boy of light's strength awakened through tragedy."
The narrator flips to the next page, now depicting a scene where the boy of shadows being taken away by a winged shadow as the boy of light chases after the latter for the sake of the former. Behind the boy of light was a nun, three children and an elderly priest, all of whom were in tears.
"As their paths diverged, the gates of Hell began to creak open..." the figure narrated menacingly as he eyed to the next page, depicting a split scene of the boy of shadows being surrounded by more winged shadows whereas the boy of light was chopping logs with his bare hands, "seasons pass, winds blow, animals fucked, a good while of time has passed as the two boys of destiny emerged unto the world to prove their worth."
The narrator turns the page, another split scene. One scene depicts the boy of light standing triumphant in a middle of an arena, the other depicting a scene of the boy of shadows leading a charge towards a giant floating stone fortress, now with wings of his own.
"Renown in gained, the world sees their potential," the narrator went on, eying towards the next image, another split scene of the boy of light being led by a black minotaur and the boy of shadow raising his black sword into the air while standing atop a mountain of corpse that he'd erected, "now they begin their journeys, fate dictating that they too, will clash."
He turns the page, now a final split scene with the two boys traveling along different paths leading towards the same location, a giant stone labyrinth. The boy of light was followed with a yellow monkey, a silver chick and a blue-gray hound, whereas the boy of shadows led an army of cloaked phantoms armed with knives.
"Ignorance of the other led to inevitable deaths," narrated the figure as he eyed towards a scene of carnage, with the silver chick being decapitated from afar and an orange-brown stoat being gutted open by the ghosts with knives as the boy of shadow and the boy of light clashed while the hound carried the wounded monkey towards where the amber pigeon and the brown bat were at, "hell broke loose. Heaven seemed to be a faint reality."
In the next page, a bright, winged silhouette encompassing both boys in its blinding light.
"Even the faintest hopes can be realized if one lives long enough," the narrator read as he eyed towards the next picture, depicting only the boy, the bat, the pigeon and the dying monkey as the sole survivors whom stood before a collapsed pile of rubble, "but even hope doesn't always mean salvation. Rather, this was simply an intermission until another kind of Hell was unleashed upon this land of blissful ignorance."
He turns to the next page, depicting both boys retreating as wounded warriors with long shadows cast over their backs.
"Destiny is indiscriminately cruel," said the narrator as he eyed towards the next image of the boy of light slowly being surrounded by stains of dark colors, "even hope can turn to despair, love into hatred, faith into heresy and luck into misfortune. The boy has now tasted true reality, for the death of his brother wasn't even counted as an appetizer."
The next page then shows a burning city populated by walking corpses.
"Now this..." the narrator remarked as he looked at this sudden shift towards another kind of madness before him, "... honestly, this was unprovoked beyond reproach," he remarked in a confused, yet impressed tone, "props to whoever can summon this much of the walking dead in a single running, but fuck man, could've he waited for a bit longer?"
He then turns to the next page, only to find a heavily-inked and defaced page.
"... Someone here is fucking with me," grumbled the narrator, "what even is this crap?"
"Hey, not my fault that the whole attack on the capital was complete nonsense!" cried out a lady's voice, revealing herself to be Corrin, ex-Golden Dawn-turned cartographer, currently sitting as the only audience member within the darkness, "... come to think of it, I don't think any of us know what the hell just happened. Felt like something happened, only it didn't."
"Ugh, alright," grumbled the narrator, "no shame in skipping."
He leafs through the pages until coming across a snowy scenery surrounded with Hellhounds and a pair of eagles, one eyepatched and the other with a braid.
"Huh, Dragunov and Kalashnikov," the narrator remarked as he eyed towards the boy of light surrounded by the same wolves, "so this is how the lost prince and the Inquisitors made first contact."
He then turns to the next page, finds the boy of light slowly losing his light as the darkness around him began encroaching upon him.
"Even the brights of lights dim at their darkest hour," said the narrator as he regained his sense to do his damned job of narrating, "even the holiest of saints aren't adverse to temptation of surrender at their lowest."
The next picture showed a giant, four-armed shadow cast over the boy of light, but from afar, a coral-pink peacock, a tiny puppy, a ribboned lion, a straw crow and a bear in tin armor coming towards the boy's aid.
"It is at the boy's lowest..." he narrated, "... is when he ascends towards at his highest."
The next scene showed the boy of light rising triumphantly as the giant shadow is slain. In the next picture, it shows the boy waking up to a ruined world.
"Even if reality itself is grim beyond belief, there are those with will of iron," the narrator declared as he eyed to the next page that depicts a destroyed civilization slowly being rebuilt, "destruction is never the end. Creation soon follows."
In the next pages, it shows the gradual recovery of the boy's light until returning back to its prior radiance. The next page soon after then shows a greater shadow looming over the rebuilding city from beyond the horizon.
"Still, nothing is absolute," he narrated, "rest must be fought for."
It then cuts to a battle against the giant shadow being stared down by a proud maned lion and a mouse. Followed up was the boy of light coming to the now-wounded two's aid, then to the wounded two came a mole with shaded eyes and a pale cricket.
"One light illuminates others to follow," the narrator spoke, "one light is more than enough to unearth the ghosts of the past."
The next then shows the shadow's inner self, being a clusterfuck of burning forests and immaculate underground labs.
"Good aren't aways sprouted from clean waters," said the narrator, "it is only accepting that the past is fetid is what allows future to be born in the first place."
The next page shows the boy of light facing down a giant black butterfly all by himself in the wild storm.
"No matter how thorny the path ahead may be..." said the narrator as the next page showed the coming dawn behind the split abomination, "... to move forward is the greatest act of good that a strong will can muster."
He then closes the book after smiling at the scene where the boy of light is rescued by a bearded owl as the former fell from high, at the bottom reading "Strongly Ever After".
"Well," the narrator remarked as he closed the book on his lap, "that was quite the tale, wasn't it?"
"Um..." Corrin raised her hand, "... meaning to ask, but how the fuck do you know of all this?" she asked, "I mean, you weren't even there!" she pointed out, "and I only know these because Juniper and Jericho keep filling me in on this crap even after I quit!"
"Oh, that's because I read all of your minds simultaneously while you're all asleep. The story I'm telling right now is your interpretation of the things you have been told by another person and the others' sense of logic to correct the story in order to create a stable continuity between each events," the narrator answered, "I mean, who would tell outright lies in a story? That would make no sense to a story at all, and a story that has no sense at all isn't a story, it's an old man's rambling," he pointed out before adopting a shit-eating smirk on his face, "it's honestly kind of cute how you see other people as animals and the shitstorm that had transpired as a children's fairy tale in your dreams, Miss Index."
"I will turn you into a toad in my dreams, Ogmios!" Corrin lambasted with an embaressed blush on her face.
On the wooden stool was now a pink toad. The book depicting Corrin's fairy-tale-like interpretation of the past several months now lying page-first on the floor.
"Croak."
Saga 1: Kickstart My Heart
Quatre Refugee-State, Noble Realm, Clover Kingdom, Midnight
"Okay," Yuno spoke, "talk."
Before the boy and his Black Bull friends was the towering and slightly-drunk High Inquisitor Saiga. All of them were sitting in an alleyway away from prying eyes and ears, drinks in hand and with each of them in differing states of inebriation.
Special mention to Deirdre the Sylph and last of the Fae race, who herself was drunk out of her mind after several shot glasses' worth (scale to human) of vodka and currently napping atop of Yuno's bed of jet-black hair.
"Oho! Thou wish to converse with loosened lips?" Saiga slurred out, his red blush radiating through his snow-white beard of braids, "clever lot, thou art?"
"You Inquisitors and your folks are always talking like if there's always a stick up your ass," Yuno hissed, "they're never open about anything, especially when they're talking to me."
"We're saying..." Gordon remarked as he struggled to stand straight on his feet, "... just tell us everything."
"Inquisitors, the Demons, and why did you kill children in your line of work," Grey spoke, struggling to hold back her tears from both the alcohol and the memories that she had to see watching children be murdered.
"For thy first two... thy told you everything that thou art should know," Saiga slurred out, still drunk, "as for wee children dying... thou art deserved to die."
Yuno and the others knew that was his answer, as typical of the overzealous types like him. But still, it didn't stung any less.
"... Why?" Grey sobbed out before tugging Saiga's braided beard towards her, "WHY DID THEY DESERVE TO DIE?! THEY'VE DONE NOTHING WRONG!"
"Correction: they're whole existence is merely an antithesis to Sephira's great will," Saiga answered nonchalantly, "now now, thou shall not call them parasites or insects because thou don't see them as weak," he corrected, the octave of his voice heading towards a deeper, more serious tone, "thou art but diseases, waiting to fester and grow large and wide enough to choke out our light that was given to us by Sephira. It would be rather ungrateful to our lady if her gift that she entrusted upon mankind were to be found soiled, no?"
"How are children dangerous?" asked Gordon, "when they've done nothing?"
"It is better that way," Saiga answered, "before they can do anything, they must die and be reborn through Sephira's grace," he rationalized, "after all, how is our lady supposed to amend her mistakes if we don't send them her way?"
It was disgusting. The man's cold and detached view on life without magic. For Yuno and especially Yuno, this disregard for life that was not part of the greaater whole affected him greatly.
This man dared to claim that he and his group serves the same order as Sister Lily's, who was nothing but kind and compassionate to everyone regardless of who they were.
Including Asta.
"... Mistake?" hissed Yuno, "why are you calling people like my brother a mistake?!"
"Bah, what do thy greenhorns know how the world works?" Saiga spat out in disgust, "it's not the strong that thou should be wary of. It is the weak and their determination that should be feared the most," the High Inquisitor justified, "thou art and countless others before yours truly have received countless reports of lesser-hearted Thaumaturges sparing the children, but all that happens is that the spared ones all grow up and dedicate their whole lives for revenge," he explained, "killing them while they're still weak is an act of mercy. And practical too, since their bodies are smaller, so they leave less of a mess to clean up after."
The way it was said, of how systematic and rational the man's thought process of killing non-magical humans, was nothing short of horrifying. Worst of all, the three of them partially agreed with the High Inquisitor's rationale.
The Demons and the Princes were dangerous. And young. To let them grow up stronger by continuing to exist will be presenting an ever-increasing danger to innocent people.
But to every possible non-magical human? Yuno wouldn't accept that even if his life depended on it.
"Hatred can't be the only thing that drives them to that point..." Yuno protested.
"No, but we're all better off that way," Saiga replied, "Demon gain something called 'hope'? Well... that's an issue. Ulster, nesting several covens of worshippers and Demons in flesh, Libratium, a former den of heretics and sinners now a cleaner hovel of the two filths..." he grumbled, "the fact that they still stand and roam is why we do not give sinners 'hope'. They linger."
"... So what you're saying is that..." Gordon stuttered as he blinked madly, trying his best to not both vomit and explode in rage, "... if you had it your way... both nations... would be burned to bedrock?"
"Oh no no no no no," Saiga retorted, "thou art's phrase 'had it your way' implies that it was merely a plan. No, an actual extermination campaign was attempted, but Ulster and Libratium held off against our might for over 10 years of nonstop fighting!"
"How, dare I ask?" Grey winced, not looking forward to the graphic details despite being the one asking.
"Drinking, fucking, drinking, fucking, fucking while drinking, drinking while fucking..." Saiga rambled, "the Mead-Bearer, Dagda was the one who stopped the war from destroying the whole country from within itself. Since then, we signed an armistice preventing 'official' conflicts over who gets to rule the Spade Kingdom and its crown. Although outliers from alcohol and occasionally one sleeping with another's married partner... now thou only fights if someone reaches a realm of drunken stupor or personal petty quarrels. After that, I rejected by promotion of becoming Patrem Inquisitor and worked with Dagda to propagate the lie to keep the three factions from well, killing each other outright."
The three Black Bull Magic Knights have all bore witnessed to something completely unfathomable. A tidal wave of dissonant emotions and levels of disgust barely comprehendible to the human palate.
Rage, sadness, rage, indignation, rage, confusion, rage and finally, an utter mindfuck. The concept of "rational thought" for Grey, Gordon and Yuno were snuffed out that day, only for it to flare back like a reincarnated phoenix of the old myths, the mental agony burdening them being beyond all possible rationale that they can even muster.
To put it simply, all three of them immediately rushed off to the nearest barrel of vodka to intoxicate themselves into forgetting what they've just heard.
"Ah youth..." sighed Saiga as he chuckled to himself in the alleyway, "... wasted upon greenhorns..."
"You know," a frank and casual voice called out next to the High Inquisitor, "there are better times and ways to have a conversation over a drink."
Out of the shadows, the Wizard King, Julius Novachrono appeared.
"Ah, Wizard King," Saiga remarked, "I can see that you're a man of your people. Thou art gives utmost respect."
"I heard everything," said Julius, "I'm not in a position to judge on the morality of killing innocents and children, but I am in all of my good consciousness of you enjoying it."
Saiga bellows out a loud gaft of laughter.
"Is it... amusing for you?" asked the Wizard King, "to take away lives simply you and your friends declared them as 'evil'?" he pointed out, "I'm not saying that they're not dangerous... but the way it's going... all it's going to do simply beget more hatred."
"Bah, considering how far thou art have already gone?" Saiga retorted, "they're past the point of forgiving us. All that there is left is to fight until one of us dies," said the High Inquisitor, "it's a holy war. Stopping now will allow evil to prevail and the greatest sin that thou can do is to do nothing."
"Like what our ancestors did to Astarte?" Julius mentioned Yuno's own recollection of finding the Demon's memories, "and you think the only way to fix this 'evil' is to continue perpetuating what they did to her and people like her?"
Saiga lunges towards Julius, only for the latter to freeze him in place with his [Chronostasis], but the latter's [Projection Magic] created a tangible copy of the High Inquisitor outside of the incanted bubble that pinned the Wizard King against the walls in a choke-lift faster than the latter can immobilize the projection.
"Listen, boy," Saiga's copy bellowed in its distorted voice, "it's too late to atone for what our forefathers did," he pointed out, "the cycle of hatred already started without and before us, so the decent thing to do is end it by settling every last score, down to the last child bleeding and whimpering in the snow. Get in our way of our holy work, then thy shall be purged! DO NOT ASSUME THOU ART'S MASTERY OF TIME ITSELF MAKES THY INVINCIBLE! WE WILL USE OUR OWN BODIES TO PAVE OUR WAY THROUGH THE COMPLETION OF OUR DUTY!"
The copy releases Julius from the chokehold.
"... Even so," coughed out Julius, "... I won't let you hurt innocents," he declared, "... a future built upon the mistakes of the past... isn't atoning anything..." the Wizard King pointed out, "all it's doing right now... is repeating our dark history!"
Saiga crouches down to Julius' eye level and pries open his right eyelid open, only for it to reveal a polished black orb with red dimples for a glass eye.
"Say that once more to thy face when thou art's 'good conscience' actually accomplishes anything worth of value," the High Inquisitor warned before he walked out of the alleyway and into the open.
Julius dusts himself as he gets back up, reestablishing his facade of jovial stoicism to prevent a bloodbath taking place in his jurisdiction. However, he himself was rather surprised that Saiga's [Projection Magic] was faster than his own [Time Magic], being able to evade a point-blank [Chronostasis] with a reaction time faster than his magically-enhanced own.
Or worse, Saiga's own natural instincts were faster than Julius' from sheer difference of experience between the two of them. "Beware of the old in a profession where the young die" indeed.
The Order of the Spade Cross, despite their well-intentioned sense of duty, utterly lacked compassion to whom they deemed as enemies unless they're strongarmed into it.
You know, I'm starting to think that Dagda fellow that Saiga called the "Mead Bearer" might be the unofficial ruler of the divide Spade Kingdom, Julius thought as he sat down on one of the benches with a plate of roast venison placed before him, ... ugh, we're all drunk to do anything. Maybe we'll all talk when we're sober, he thought as he ate before gagging on his vomit and swallowing back down, hangovers notwithstanding.
Clearly, everyone in the rebuilt capital were drinking too much regardless of social class, nationality, gender, or even belief.
For Julius and the three Black Bulls, their thoughts on Saiga were murky. Was he another self-righteous zealot like Dragunov and Kalashnikov, a grim pragmatist like Tokarev, or is he just some mad loon who happens to be right only in some places of moral dilemmas who just happened to have a sense of humor not for everyone?
Regardless of whichever is correct, it must be said again: everyone is too drunk to care right now. Not what they were thinking right now, nor the small glowing pillar of hazy light that was faintly spotted from a far distance westward.
Ulster Territory, Spade Kingdom, Midnight
"Can't sleep?" said Jericho as he came out of the tavern hovel right on top of a still-trotting giant boar across an endless sea of green grass and monstrous magical wilderbeasts, "I mean, we haven't stopped moving since... like ever."
Below Jericho was Corrin, sitting on the staircase as she scooted aside to make room for the half-Jotun (explained by Brigid and later come to terms with it a little bit) Black Bull Magic Knight.
"How can I sleep?" Corrin pointed out, "I mean, by the time I renounce being a Magic Knight to avoid violence, I found myself being pulled back into a even more violent world that I tried running away from," she explained, looking out into the wilderness with trembling eyes, "is the world punishing me for my cowardice?"
Jericho shakes his head. "Honestly, I'm not allowed to judge," he answered, "it was your choice, and you did mention that you were pressured by family legacy to join the Magic Knights."
"Yeah... I guess," she sheepishly grinned, "I only chose the Golden Dawn just out of a spur-of-a-moment decision just to get my mom and dad off my back from nagging me of continuing the family legacy ever since mom changed for the worse after a botched mission at the Diamond Kingdom..."
Jericho chooses not to pry at Corrin's little slip of the tongue. Instead, he opts for the following.
"Do you regret that you ever joined in the first place?"
Corrin wanted to say "no", but something deep in her heart says that her so-called "mistakes" and "regrets" weren't something that constituted as what their labels mean. In fact, claiming that what their labels are saying is accurate is juvenile.
"You know..." Jericho spoke, "it's okay to be immature right now," he said with a smile, "it's just us right now."
With that, Corrin finally lets loose her true feelings of her own life.
"Okay, the truth is, I both regret it and don't," she said, "on one hand, I had the displeasure of meeting and fighting with and against really shitty people, from overprevilaged nobles who look down on everyone weaker than them to actual bandit scumbags who prey upon the weak! Both of those people make me ill just thinking about them, and me being the one to make the judgement call of whether I kill them or not! I don't want my face to sneer into a haughty grin or contemptuous arrogance that people fear and revile! I want to be a normal person who won't be judged by social standing!"
Corrin wipes her eyes as her sleeves were being wet with more tears.
"But on the other hand?" she sobbed out, "... I don't regret trying it in the first place. I got to meet people who are genuinely heroic like my ex-Captain William Vangence and you, my powers, even though they're weak, were still being used to help people, and doing good... kinda felt good. Like a weight of sin was lifted off of my chest," Corrin looked out towards the night sky with watery eyes, "now look at me, throwing away everything at another spur of a moment because I got cold feet when Demons became a thing."
"Corrin, I have to be honest," Jericho replied, now adopting the blunt route, "but I don't think wanting to be a normal person is a bad thing," he answered, "in fact, I think it's good to think of the future rather than worrying about the present."
"... What are you implying?" Corrin asked.
"Fighting... it's complicated," Jericho explained, "I first fought for Taro, hoping that my world will accept him after I beat up other noble kids without my magic," he confessed, "but instead, all I did was make the situation worse not only for myself but also for my family," Jericho explained, "unlike you, I never knew when to quit and it's not just me paying for it dearly. Others did too," Corrin looked at him in surprise, "I mean, the Wizard King set us up with an observatory near the coast and away from civilization just so that we don't end up dead in the streets, so there's that. I mean, after that shitstorm, I got blinded by my own dreams of universal acceptance that I almost became no different from the noble kids that I grew to despise. I was actually considering sacrificing everything I knew to usher peace between different nations. In a way, I envy you Corrin. You actually have the sense to second guess yourself whereas everyone else believe that they're right in multiple degrees."
"Are you saying... that it's okay for me to be like this?" Corrin asked.
Jericho looks at her with a look of confirmation. "Your life is yours to decide, Corrin," he pointed out, "fight or run, stay or flee, I don't know how you lived because I don't live your life, Corrin," Jericho explained, "I have my own life to live, and what I want to do with it is to help other people accept others."
Corrin lets out a deep sigh of relief, with some of her worries being loosened from her mind. "I think you have a point," she agreed, "life itself isn't exactly over with a bad start or meeting people with names that soon die shortly after just to remind all of us that we're fragile meat sacks who are all one day away from being killed in disturbingly imaginative ways."
"Hey," Corrin looked at Jericho, giving her a thumbs-up, "you got me by your side, and I sure as hell won't let you down," he promised, "I'll handle the punching, you keep your eyes open and your hands gripped around that quill of yours, alright?"
"[Magnet Magic] sure as hell makes my job as a cartographer a helluva lot easier," Corrin grinned, "the pen practically writes by itself."
The two share a laugh together outside of the tavern hut. Inside the hovel and leaned next to the door, Nozel was found by Cissonius, with the former being there listening in on the two's conversation out of a whim, and the latter coming down seemingly for unknown reason.
"Never took ye for an eavesdropper," commented the silver-haired half-Elf.
"Then you know too little, savage," Nozel snapped back.
"Eh, been called worse," Cissonius remarked as he leapt over the bar counter to enter the kitchen behind it, "so hot tea or milk? Latter's powdered export from Avalon since they started trading with us a few years back."
As much as Nozel wouldn't prefer to accept handouts from a backwater resident like the ones from Ulster's savage lands, even he was slightly curious of what kind of tea they offered out here. So against his seemingly-better judgement, he relents.
"... I'll take the tea," Nozel grumbled as he sat before the counter as he saw the half-elf bring out a humanoid-shaped root the size of a common newborn along with a meat cleaver, already regretting the choice he'd made.
Nevertheless, it was his dignity as a nobleman to save face even before the utterly-bizarre spectacle that happened before him.
Is he trying to make tea, or is this witchcraft? Nozel thought as he saw Cissonius dump chopped-up bits of the humanoid root plant into a boiling cauldron along with other assortment of sweet-smelling herbs and flowers, if there's only one thing that I have to say, the people of Ulster don't do things in halves, he surmised as he saw the half-elf take out a small, earthenware cup along with a strainer, the poured ladle being filtered through the grill in a stream of reddish-orange liquid before this Ulsterian tea was served before Nozel.
The aroma was a pleasant mix of sweet, sour and spicy, both calming his nerves and invigorating his body all at the same time. Nozel was expecting a strong, earthly flavor compared to Clover Kingdom's more subtle and aromatic flavoring. This drink before him was like a mixture of a cold medicine and a warm sweet drink, a combination that shouldn't work yet his mind is telling him that it's somehow working in a harmony that was never meant to be, yet it is.
"Order up," Cissonius spoke as he presented the tea, "Mandrake-Alraune Blend. Will kick yer arse back from the dead and you'll wake up next morning a new man wearing new clothes of skin."
"... Mandrake?" Nozel asked, "you mean those humanoid root monsters that let out a murderously-loud scream that will kill any nearby listeners?"
"Why do ye think we're traveling on top of Twrch Trwych in da first place?" the half-Elf pointed out, "land, air, water, there are more things all over Ulster that'll kill yer arse in a thousand, overly-gratuitously creative ways."
Nozel rolled his eyes before took a sip of the tea. Upon ingesting the liquid, he suddenly felt all of his nerves flare back to life while his brain felt unnatural levels of calm and tranquility. His vision was strengthened to the point where he is able to pick out every single floating dust particle, his tongue was able to pick out the five distinct flavors of each root and floral extract down to the most subtle of details, his skin felt everything from the clothes sticking onto his skin down to each strand of hair growing from his scalp, his nose was filled with an infernal hegemony of scents from the tea to the disgusting rubbish bin behind the kitchen, and his ears were hearing both the giant boar's hooves stamping on the earth to the worms that were tunneling beneath.
"... Hello?"
Nozel lets out a loud gasp upon being woken up by Cissonius. He felt something wet dripping from one of his nostrils, finding blood dripping from it with a dab from his fingers.
"Don't worry," the half-Elf reassured as he wiped Nozel's nose with a handkerchief, "this always happens to first-time drinkers, so ye ain't gonna die. How's the taste?"
"... Unbelievable," Nozel answered as he felt his body completely renewed of the fatigue that he'd been hiding to keep face, "this isn't just tea. It's more of a medicine. That tastes really, really good."
"That's because it is!" Cissonius confirmed, "Mandrake-Alurane Blend is used as a cold medicine for us Ulsterians. Me first taste was back when I was a wee lad," he grinned, "good for any occasion."
"May I have... another?" asked Nozel, now finding himself liking this blend.
"Sorry mate, no," said the half-Elf, "unless ye wanna go blind. Or deaf, or noseless, or tasteless. Or worse, feel-less."
Nozel then hears his stomach grumble.
"... Let me get some wild corn porridge," Cissonius remarked as he walked back into the kitchen before bringing back a small wooden bowl of gruel, "blend help ye work up an appetite."
Again, his body's need for food superseded Nozel's own pride. And so he found himself eating peasant food. One that admittedly tasted really good, being a blend of both meaty and light with a slight pinch of salt.
"... You're a confusing lot," Nozel commented, "both savage and civilized, cruel yet noble, deceptive and honest. You lot are hard to read."
"Eh, ye ain't so different," commented Cissonius, "underneath that icy shell, yer a soft marshmallow."
"You lie," Nozel rebutted, "even if that were the truth, I am a noble and a Silver Eagle Magic Knight of the Clover Kingdom. Emotions and personal relationships are second in priority compared my homeland's security."
"But not completely irrelevant, amirite?" grinned the half-Elf, "got family? Girlfriend? Boyfriend?"
Nozel remains silent at Cissonius's questioning.
"Come on!" he bemoaned, "life's too short to live alone!"
"... The strong shouldn't concern themselves with others," the noble Magic Knight murmured, "... they're only strong when they stand alone."
Cissonius raises an eyebrow at Nozel's latter half of the statement. It's clear to him that the man has lost someone close to him. Even though it would be for the best to not press for answers, Cissonius was taught that unresolved emotions are like festering wounds.
It only leads to a slow death.
"... Who was it?" Cissonius asked Nozel of whom the noble have lost, to which the latter left the counter with a half-eaten bowl of porridge, "eh. I tried."
Jericho and Corrin both come back to find the half-Elf behind the counter and the whole tavern smelling like sweet herbs and spices.
"Whoa," Jericho wiped his mouth with his arm, "suddenly, I feel like I can eat an entire pasture's worth of cattle."
"What's that smell?" asked Corrin, "... not that I'm complaining. Seriously, I feel like all of my worries are gone now."
"Tea," Cissonius answered as he pointed his thumb towards the cauldron behind him, "Mandrake-Alurane Blend. Want some?"
"Eh... I don't think I can drink that much," Corrin remarked, "even if all of us pitched in, I'm pretty sure there would be leftovers."
"Well, to begin with, the portion wasn't exactly meant for mortal consumption," the half-Elf pointed out, "Nozel-boyo said he wanted tea right at the same time I got to work on the thing, so call him a taste-tester?"
"For whom?" Jericho asked before the tavern door opened to reveal an enigmatic cloaked figure.
Despite the customer's appearance being no different that of a regular vagabond one would find wandering through the villages' dirt roads, but something felt off of about the him. Something akin to a volcano that was bubbling, ready to erupt at any moment if it felt as if it were displeased. Something inhuman, as if the withered, hunchbacked appearance that the cloak drapes over is merely a facade, a false pretense hiding a nature that was beyond human imagination.
Corrin and Jericho felt as if they were in a middle of a wildfire as the cloaked man shuffled into the tavern's wooden floors, hints of ember and soot being left behind at his minuscule, yet awesome presence.
Cissonius however, simply saw the man as another customer as the latter placed a fair-sized sack of yul onto the countertop.
"Ye got what I want?" the half-Elf asked, his semi-pointed ears twitching in anticipation.
The vagabond gestures towards the door, with Cissonius himself carrying the entire cauldron outside of the tavern and the other two, Jericho and Corrin, looking on in blank stupor at what is happening right now.
"... Do you think we should?" asked Corrin.
"We're losing sleep either way," replied Jericho as the two of them ran out the door, first finding out that the boar has stopped in its tracks as evidenced by the scenery no longer moving by them anymore.
As the two of them carefully made their way to the boar's head, they looked down, and found a dead Lindwyrm, but snow-white in its scale coloration marred with its own red blood, being eaten out by the Twrch Trwyth itself.
"Holy shit...!" Corrin remarked as she leaned further in to get a better look, "what in the flying fuck is going on right now-"
All of the sudden, Corrin slips her footing and grip on the boar's mossy fur and begins falling headfirst towards the ground, the distance between where she fell from and the ground, combined with the position of her trajectory, would kill her upon landing.
As Jericho reached and grabbed her arm, he tried to yank her back up to the beast's back, but found her completely suspended midair.
Not floating or being held up by an unseen force. Completely frozen in mid-fall. Like a still image. Even as Jericho pulled onto her arm hard enough to uproot a stump from the ground, her frozen body refused to budge an inch.
"Uh... what just happened?" Jericho asked Corrin, only for the latter to be unable to speak, let alone, move her mouth.
"I stole her 'movement', Jerry-boyo," Cissonius' voice cried out from below where they were, "there ain't nothin' in this bloody world that me [Snatch Magic] can't steal!"
"Can you give it back?!" Jericho asked.
"And let ye fall to yer deaths?!" Cissonius replied, "... okay, just uh... give me a moment while you two uh... readjust yerselves for a... softer landing."
Jericho then prepares to take one for the team, by using his own body as a cushion and clinging onto her frozen body midair.
"Also, one least word before I give her 'movement' back," Cissonius told Jericho, "try not to piledrive her, eh?"
Jericho grumbles weakly before Corrin then begins falling and screaming like a madwoman as both of them take a hard plunge towards the earth.
Instead of feeling her own bones shatter into a thousand different pieces upon landing, Corrin felt like if she landed in a bubble of soft gel, of which it was revealed to her to be Jericho, now whose body was no longer solid nor completely liquid.
"What the fuck?!" Corrin cried out as she scrambled away from the gooey Jericho.
"Oh relax, none of ye are dead," Cissonius remarked, "I used me [Snatch Magic] to steal Jerry-boyo's body's 'rigidity'. Felt like landing on the world's softest pillow, innit?"
"Uh yah," gel-Jericho blubbered out, "can aye git me booty bak te norm?"
In less than a second, Jericho's splattered body reinflates back to its normal self upon having its "rigidity" restored.
"Yer welcome," Cissonius smirked.
"That aside," Jericho remarked as he and Corrin saw the old traveler chug a whole cauldron's worth of aromatic tea in one sitting, "who is that man?"
"Yeah..." Corrin pointed out the elephant in the room, "compared to you and Dagda, he doesn't feel anything close to a 'human'."
Cissonius scratches his head before speaking. "... Well-"
But before he can continue, a especially-massive Guerrilla Lindwyrm (the others that they've encountered throughout the whole of a month prior were made to look like worms in comparison) bursts out of the earth before the old man, its shadow completely eclipsing all of them (including the whole tavern).
"We-WE GOTTA RUN!" Jericho cried out as his fight-or-flight response veered towards the latter (for obvious reasons).
Cissonius however, remained unperturbed. "And miss out of a good show like this?"
"HE'LL DIE AND WE WILL IF WE DON'T RUN!" Corrin pointed out as the massive wilderbeast charged towards the withered man.
"An overgrown wildebeast?" the half-Elf half-chuckled, "against the most powerful of the elderbeasts?"
"... Come again?" both Jericho and Corrin remarked before they both saw the old man stop the giant beast in its tracks with nothing more than a palm placed against the monster's snout.
The serpent's tubular body wriggled and writhed into the air as it continued pushing against the immovable object, but try as it might, the old vagabond refused to even move.
If one were to catch a glimpse underneath the cloak's hood, one would find a wide grin of pearly-whites beaming against the night and the terror around them,
"Now I'm all fired up."
As soon as the old man's hood unfurls from his head, a tower of spiraling inferno bursts towards the heavens and reaching the stars above. Within the flames, the small mousey frame of a hunchbacked old man transformed into that of a humongous, winged, horned figure standing on two legs with one of its two clawed arms extended outwards. As the flames dissipated, it revealed a giant, red-scaled, black and topaz-armored, crescent-winged, marvelously horned Dragon.
Compared to the towering majesty standing over their puny forms like a physical god among literal insects unworthy of the dirt on the former's boots, the giant Lindwyrm knew it was utterly fucked.
"[Primal Fire Magic]..." declared the Dragon as the air around itself began to warp and blur from the spike in temperature akin to a summer solstice before transitioning into Hell's own pits of brimstone and sulfur, "... [Dreadnaught]."
It felt as if the whole world around them exploded like a bomb. The two of them clearly felt their skin being scorched off of their flesh as their flesh were being blown off of their bones like the seeds of a dandelion. But upon opening their eyes, none found themselves particularly harmed. Not even their clothes were damaged, let alone, even slightly singed.
... Except for the surrounding area, which is now completely reduced to an ashen wasteland. The Guerrilla Lindwyrm, now a giant holiday roast.
"I stole everyones' body temperatures before giving it all back in an instant, so ye can literally be burnt alive and come out fresh as a daisy," Cissonius remarked with a nervous grin, "before that, bossman used his [Counter Magic] to divert the flames elsewhere the last minute. Had to get good at me pickpocketing to save everyone's lives."
Corrin looked back at the Dragon before looking back at Cissonius. "... You're implying that-"
"Yep, he's one of our regulars," the half-Elf sighed out, "Agi the Fire Dragon."
Corrin then faints at the revelation, with Jericho catching her mid-fall. As Jericho looks towards the Fire Dragon Agi walking towards them, the giant bipedal elderbeast form bursts into flames to reveal a now-more straight-backed and youthful, human form of a young man with tan skin and a wild mane of dirty-maroon hair that reached all the way down to his neck.
"Hey, no need to be so stiff!" Agi spoke as he waved "hello" to Jericho, "I ain't gonna eat ya! Too small to even be a snack!"
Jericho nervously chuckles as the Dragon in human form faced the half-Elf.
"Overkill as always, Agi," Cissonius sighed out, "you know that people are gonna keep giving you shit if you keep destroying property."
"Ah come on," Agi remarked lackadaisically, "grass grows back."
"How was the tea?" Cissonius asked, abandoning the futile topic of discussion.
"Put some fire in my belly, for sure!" Agi then let loose a hearty laughter, "man getting old sucks! I really hate to be grandma at some point, but what can you do, Cisso-boyo? That's life!"
The two then share a laugh like old friends over a drink. As Jericho collects his bearings after tying up Corrin in a piggyback, he then approaches the Dragon in human form with steeled resolved.
"So uh... Mr. Agi," spoke Jericho.
"That's my name, don't wear it out," the Fire Dragon replied casually.
"What are you... a clearly nigh-divine being of raw, ancient magic," he mid-panicked during his delivery, defaulting into an overly-flattering manner of speaking, "... doing here?"
"Well," Agi remarked as he rubbed his chin in contemplation, "firstly, I need to get away from my other siblings before they drive me up the wall... especially that exhibitionist who always lets his little buddy hang low right in front of me... so I'm bugging out here in the Mead Bearer's place until I can get my shit together, or until one of them come find my arse and drag me back home," he sighed out, holding in his great annoyance at a certain Ice Dragon, "and second, I need to tell the chieftains of Ulster's tribes a very, very bad news."
"What's the bad news?" asked Cissonius, "I can pass it along to bossman Dagda."
The Fire Dragon lets out a deep sigh as he places his hand onto the half-elf's shoulder.
"The Valley of White Death's expanding again," Agi answered with a serious glare in his topaz-colored eyes, "Dragurs have been spotted coming westward."
Valley of White Death, Avalon Territory, Spade Kingdom, Midnight
"... How... many more..." heaved the broken-winged Demon, "do I... need... to kill?!"
Alone, the Prince of War swung his gunblade [Remembrance] at the endless horde of the undead. Each Dragur alone was easy enough to kill with one swing from his [Anti-Magic] sword being enough to shatter them like glass, but with each one slain, a brand-new one burst from the knee-deep layer of snow, roaring and snarling, all of them hungry for blood and vengeance.
The last opponents that he'd fought were superior in skill, but their fear of death that they all tried to suppress it, in which the hesitation allowed Astaroth and his now-long dead allies have pushed towards it for the killing blow. From Clover Kingdom's Magic Knights to the Order of the Spade Cross and even the likes of Cain and Leviathan, all of them had hearts, therefore, they had no solid convictions that instead, ebbed and flowed like water.
Unlike human mages, the Dragur were a different breed of foes for the Prince of War. They had no fear of death since they are already dead to begin with. Their hearts, their very souls, were like solid ice. Always growing in size and increasing in solidity as the winds around Astaroth grew. A punishment for the lone Prince to simply wander blindly into their resting place, forever disturbed and restless by their cold-blooded rage to the Demon Prince's smoldering hellfire.
Nevertheless, neither side relents, be it a lone Prince of War driven by his own sin of [Despair] or the endless horde of the undead Dragur screaming for vengeance, both sides pushed and kept pushing against each other.
"All of you... the lost souls... that have yet to move on..." Astaroth slashed his gunblade through the white horde as they kept lunging and clawing towards the former, "your indignation... is nothing compared to my own powerlessness!"
The ebon blade them emits a dark flame from its edge, coating the whole weapon in a dark pyre that all those who've touched it burst into pitch-black clouds of scattered ash. Astaroth continues swinging and slashing the endless horde, their abyssal grave filled to the brim with the bodies and souls of the fallen keep refilling the horde's lost combatants indefinitely.
An unstoppable force, the Prince's inherited [Hatred] and raging [Despair].
Against an immovable object, the infinite legion of undead Dragurs.
"Disappear... and scatter!" snarled the Prince as the inferno around his [Remembrance] exploded into a dark arc of destruction, the swing reaching its peak before hitting the ground and dispersing a flak explosion that sent hundreds of both active and inactive-Dragurs into the perpetually-gray skies above and through the choking blizzard, "... [Black Blaster]!"
Swing after swing, explosion after explosion of black and white, Astaroth charges through the mob of white bone and snow, his roar piercing though the howling winds that blew back harder against him as the Prince pushed further into the horde. From above, a great chasm can be seen gaping open and not closing back together.
For the first time, someone has wounded the Valley of White Death. The scar left behind was witnessed by the two cloaked beings watching from afar in silence, approving of the performance.
But before one of them could speak, both are then buffeted by a sudden surge of the freezing gale, forcing both of them to fall onto their bellies and watch while crawling, with one holding onto the sleigh by the end of the rope that it was anchored to.
"... It's here," one whispered, "... the Lich King."
Presenting itself before the now-exhausted Prince of War was a giant (roughly double the size of Astaroth and Lucifer in height, combined) skeleton with a pair of burning blue lights emitting from its sockets. Its titanic body was adorned with royal regalia of purple and navy, its jewels adorning its bones being covered in black permafrost and rust alike. It's teeth and lower skull-face being covered in a veil of cloth that was bearing the symbol of a four-pointed star being surrounded by four other four-pointed stars.
"... None... have... come... this... far..." spoke the Lich King as its pale orbs of cerulean light stared into the Prince's burning eyes of hatred, "... to... wound... the... walking... dead... inconceivable..."
Astaroth, seeing an opening, tries to attack the giant skeleton man, but he found himself unable to move, due to his body now turning black from frostbite, growing more brittle faster than his own [Anti-Magic] can keep stitching his body together.
"... All... who... enter..." spoke the Lich King, "... have... two... options..." it continued speaking as Astaroth's vessel begins breaking apart, "... either... join... or... die..." the ruler of the dead declared as it looked down upon the Prince as it approached the Demon Prince, the process of the frostbite accelerating as it came closer, "... however... you... can... do... neither... so... live... as... snow... FOREVER!"
Astaroth tried to scream and roar in defiance, but his lower jaw and tongue fell off of their hinges before the Lich King brought down its bony fist through the Prince's frozen body, shattering it into a thousand pieces, not necessarily killing him, but also leaving him utterly incapable of doing anything as the now-piecemeal Demon Prince of War watched helplessly as the Lich King turned its back from him.
His vision began to slowly turn white from being buried in the snow, whatever's left he's able to see now nothing but the Lich King's back turning into a faint silhouette between the eternal blizzard.
Impossible... thought Astaroth, ... my war... it cannot end here! he raged, unable to speak nary a half of a word, IT CANNOT!
Astaroth's being, even though it shattered into a thousand pieces, still united with nary a strands of raw [Anti-Magic] webbing his broken body back together, continued burning with hellish hate. His [Hatred] burned and from the inferno, [Despair] kept itself alit, swearing vengeance at the Lich King for this humiliation.
I SWEAR! I WILL KILL YOU AND TAKE YOUR CROWN FOR MY OWN! declared Astaroth as his vision was now completely buried under the storming sleet and ice, MY DESPAIR AND HATRED WILL BE ANSWERED FOR!
From above, as soon as the Lich King disappeared from the surrounding area, the two cloaked beings came down to where the Prince was shattered about and began excavating for the pieces. Little by little, the pair loaded the pieces onto their sleigh, cramming the pieces back together next to a wolf-eared girl with a tattered grimoire of shadowed and mirrored symbol of the Spade wrapped tightly around her arms.
One of the two then picks up [Remembrance] from the snow, looking at its mechanics and comparing it to its own weapon, a shaft of wood and barreled iron with a hair trigger attached to a lever-like mechanism to the former's revolving chamber.
"So she has completed it," the being spoke as it looked at the weapons, "it must be fate, that her exile has completed and returned the missing half of the Gewehr."
"Hey!" the other one spoke as it finished loading the pieces into the sleigh before wrapping the bundle in its tarp of beige cloth, "we're lucky that the Dragurs can't sense us right now, so hurry up before we both freeze!"
The two then walk back where they've come from, the howling blizzard continuously roaring forevermore in a realm of death and cold.
To Be Continued...
Author's Notes: Good to be back with a sequel series/soft-reboot, and the first chapter is a self-reflective piece of how far I came since Book 1's first chapter. The characters' interactions may allude to my own amateurish past as a newbie writer to now, a semi-okay writer who is better at coming up with good ideas but bad as executing them on paper.
First of all, the Black Bull's interrogation being sloppy is justified in that one, they're doing this while drunk, and two, none of them actually interrogated anyone before properly. Hell, the only reason why they managed to get anything out of Saiga is that not only he's drunk as them, but also, he has no reason to lie. Also regarding Saiga's characterization, he cements that while each Inquisitor can vary in temperament, all of them are merciless in their pursuit of destroying all evil. They spare no one in their sights, and Saiga being an old man in an organization with a high fatality rate means that he's seen some shit that would make Julius sweat a little.
Second, the whole recap was something that I wrote up since Spring Break due to boredom. I only did it so that no one has to go through the trouble of actually reading Book 1: Conquest due to it being the "growing pains" of my fanfic career. Consider that my little favor.
Third, I'm pushing Yuno out of his protagonist role in favor of Fana, Jericho and Corrin. All three are in serious need of screentime and Yuno already had his daay in the sun. So far, Jericho's implied recklessness is an informed flaw at best, but I was going for more a fundamental and philosophical recklessness and not the Leeroy Jenkins-kind of recklessness. Corrin's conflict will be of finding her resolve in an ever-dangerous world through her own indecisiveness. And Fana (both human and elf halves), well, that'll be covered in the next Saga.
And finally, the worf effect for Astaroth is a call-back to how Asta died in the first Saga of Book 1. Only instead of a chainsaw, it's a karate chop from a giant skeleton man. The Lich King will be Astaroth's new rival figure for him to overcome before he steps back into the spotlight. Considering that [Anti-Magic] only protects him from magic and not from natural occurrences like frostbite, he's got a lot of work cut out for him.
All and all, I am glad to say that I am back, and this kind of writing style is something that I can be proud of reading.
References:
- Saga's title is based off the Mötley Crüe's song with the same name.
- Saiga's rationale for killing Adaptor and Contractor children takes a page from DBZA's Frieza's explanation of why the whole "Wouldn't Hurt a Child" is a bad idea when one's on the offensive end of an extermination campaign. Also the "mess"-part of the speech based off DBZA's Dodoria's attempted pre-mortem one-liner when about to kill some Namekian children.
- Agi's human form (and catchphrase) is based off Natsu Dragneel with some elements of Acnologia's human form, and his Dragon form is based off Dauntless Dragon from Cardfight! Vanguard. Also his name is based off the line of fire-elemental spells from Shin Megami Tensei.
- The Lich King's design is a composite between Ice Prison Necromancer, Cocytus from Cardfight! Vanguard and Baraggan Louisenbairn's Resurrección Form from Bleach. It's cyromancy is also similar to how the latter's [Respira] works, with some elements of Ghiaccio's [White Album]'s [Gently Weeps] ability.
- The Lich King's speech pattern is conceptually based off of Cocytus' speech pattern from Overlord.
Hypothetical Voices:
Agi: Tetsuya Kakihara (JPN), Lucian Dodge (ENG)
Lich King: Kenta Miyake (JPN), David Sobolov (ENG)
And as usual, please leave a comment or a review, for I'd love to know what my readers think!