Rolling black clouds frame the eternal, exact distance between heaven and earth, and that beyond that is unknown.
Changing only when the torchlike sun rakes them, or the storms beyond the edge of the drop off into nothing agitate them, frail mortals must judge themselves by their smallness compared to what has Ascended.
They cannot climb to the sky, nor soar as the brave birds do.
(Every last sword brother seeks past that barrier, to be with Them above.)
Adris’ hand is small while stretching toward that goal that he’s already given up on. A very quizzical thin, tanned appendage that feels foreign even though it obeys his intentions to move. Rusty red flaps where he lays and repeatedly hits against his fingers before he grabs a stalk. Aromatic smells of a ripe harvest grown with the protection of a lee are remembered as the musty scent before the day of.
(Sorghum…? Wait… wait, where…?)
He startles when something creeps over the rustling of the grain. Years of almost dying plants his feet and backrolls him over his shoulder to escape a whistling aiming for his stomach!
(Or lower!? An enemy?)
He rips up the brown earth and readies to hurl it at his opponent, for nothing better is in reach…!
“If you hit me with that, does it count?”
Dark eyes watch his movements, to continue studying when he freezes up with it raised to toss.
“Huh? What…?”
“A loss?”
With long black hair shining in the bright sunlight raking over the hill, her sword stance is considerably less impressive when what nearly disemboweled Adris is merely a two-foot-long, half-debarked stick held to murder him with.
Still without emotion, except to squint her eyes with either frustration or uncertainty, she hazards another question.
“I failed the ambush. Shouldn’t you ‘instruct’ me, now, Adris?”
(Ser… Serras…?)
Wrapped in a land-bounded farmer’s thin robe re-cut for a child, this ever-aggressive waif finally has the meat she needed being added to her. From this sparse patch of grain that both help to cultivate, food enough to grow themselves is given without beatings or threats, or the need for cruel missions in service to a fat master. Soft lumps push up against the worn fabric stained by her sweat. Wonderful additions that Adris especially loves to help grow larger with offers of rubbing them!
(After we ran from the cadre, you seemed to grow an inch every day.)
“… Or are you going to ‘show me later’?”
She turns to gaze at a graying-haired old man with a missing arm who is struggling to draw out from a shack’s straw lean-to the crude long scythe and thresher that he’ll use for harvesting.
Grim-faced always, when Mori also turns to see two children staring at him, he grunts and waves at them to “never-mind” what he’s up to and continue their “meaningless play” as he refers to it.
The old man is, after all, a constant escape route for Adris when he’s cornered. For, there’s always work to be done by a strong boy instead. Within the two-room country domicile, a small hearth burns with the smells of a coming meal that both of their hands have allowed for. The older lady within, a long-dried out “mother” named Lerna is also an “out”; but, Adris’ teeth grind when he considers that Serras is the one favored by that escape route.
“Adris?” Serras’ unfeeling face cracks a bit with concern, a jolt even harsher than her sudden attack. “Are you feeling bad?”
“How… how are we…?”
(I fell asleep… I slept forever…)
“No worries, no worries~. Just needed a hen like you to wake me.”
“… Then don’t pretend you’re constipated again to avoid me.”
But now the finishing day has solved that slumbering problem with the attack of a rabid squirrel. This vermin tosses a long pole she was dragging at Adris if it was never in question what his answer would be, yet her flashing eyes betray annoyance at what she perceives as him trying to fool her.
“[Sharpen me, please, elder.]” She intones the cadre phrase with a knife-hand held before her heart because she knows nothing better, then firms her two-handed grip.
He’s up in a moment, aiming a pointy end at her heart with his nerves ablaze.
The action releases all her own tension. Adris’ hesitation was hers, but she mildly grins once when she edges forward. Her “sword” tip probes his boundaries with a rough aggression that she will lose after a decade more of real combat.
(Fighting on the slope was always our routine…!)
“Nobody else left.” A rare and dark boast for an older child goes with blue, almond-shaped eyes glittering with excitement. Serras dashes in with a low juke and swings her sword upward to test his grit.
(Bloodthirsty shorty!)
The feint clacks off his spear to become a chop at his right leg, one that he jumps and stabs downward from his escape like a flying river fisher trying to gore her!
(You’ll never, ever fool me!)
Not that he ever succeeds this early at tricking her either, despite pelting her in the face after with half a clump of dirt she dutifully slices through.
[First stab and cut] are merely their greetings.
The merciless sword strokes which miss his back by an inch as he flees take his mind off the coming storm. Adris almost stops when he checks on their begrudging benefactor that has ceased work to stroke his beard with a mysteriously soft expression. It should earn a roar and a slap for how Serras hacks down their sparse food crop the day before the harvest, but who would be eating it is who the old man silently watches over.
(Mori… you’ve stopped frowning…?)
The old man says every day that it’s the last before he kicks them out, but then he always…!?
Adris chuckles when hurling himself to his right side to disappear into the thickest sorghum. If Adris is ever going to earn a laugh from the old man, then Adris has just the right place in mind to ambush a charging tigress when she blunders by.
She’ll tumble right in—!
(I… miss—!)
There’s a heaviness at Adris’ side when the world turns dark.
What little radiance coming in through the worn door in the wall tinges blue when bouncing off of her. This squatting demoness waves long fingers in sequence at him while stroking his left upper arm. Her grin is nerve-wracking with how happy it is given his long list of crimes against her, and how rapidly they come to mind under this wilting presence as she looms closer.
(FUCKING HELL!)
Adris wants to jump out of his skin, but is stopped when a mesh-covered finger presses against his lips and forces his head back down.
{Why so guilty?}
Once his breathing slows, she begins to “talk” with flighty gestures.
“… Because this feels like the end of my day, but I just woke up. Am I drifting off again…?”
{No, no, dreams don’t free you that easily, Partner.}
Their bolt hole within a storage room collapsed between two different levels of this greenhouse they ran into, one filled with flowers of such variety of bright colors that Adris was nauseated simply to be among them, should’ve been safe. But this witch who is angled so that none can see their private conversation wasn’t included in safety’s guidance, and Adris’ aid should the witch be plotting is distracted.
“Nothing written will be wrong, so why do you have to proofread my precious book!? Just wait!”
“‘Forestalling one’s forthcoming final be-clowning’, invalidate this assessment by accepting kind guidance from this lady, skink.”
“Kind!? This is you being kind!?” Ave’s face becomes a mask of horror, then the elf scratches her head wildly and whispers to nobody in particular when drawing away. “By Pellaeon, what if this IS her kindest spirit…?”
Ave takes up most of the bolt-hole with her snaking body rubbing up against the abandoned planting materials that reek so heavily of ancient must. The other sits upon a dusty barrel with motions for Ave to turn something over. Their ongoing feud concerns no-one, so Adris ignores them to grin at his benevolent Partner who might be offering in a moment to “forthwith” him, too. The grieving Kol lies on her side with her back to him, still recovering from her excesses but possibly awake now and an option. After having Still magically reappear a poleaxe from shadows, the kobold wraps her whole body around it like it’s a lost child found again.
{Good acts toward evil shall never make noble such a base nature.} Dancing fingers spin a lesson instead of cutting him. {Nor shall others find what is utterly hideous now pretty with merely a “fresh scent” applied.} It’s the terse advice of one who has studied arts that mortals find distasteful, to see covering up the worst qualities with a veneer as impossible past a certain point.
(Is the “evil” here you or Rantil?)
Adris’ calm is still unsettled by a draining dream of dueling with Serras in a field that burnt to the ground when raiders murdered their caretakers. Having Still start pontificating on his wrongs turns that even sourer.
“I trust her. Absolutely.” Without indicating who back, Adris relaxes and closes his eyes. Dismissing her with the opposite track is his plan.
(It’ll drive you insane to hear that, won’t it, my dea—?
Ack!?)
A thump on his forehead opens up to a curious smile. {You shouldn’t trust that relationship.} After a negative, she forms a “0”. {No compatibility between those two.}
(“Two” who!? You’re doing this on purpose.)
Finally a pronoun indicating “Adris”, but now there’s three individuals in question for “third person”: a relationship, but between Adris and Still, Adris and Rantil, or Still and Rantil, is up in the air.
“It’s something that will be discovered.” Another curt dismissal earns a hand on his cheek that tugs on it!
(You think only you can be annoying~?)
Something about this back and forth is a little more entertaining when Still drops into a kneeling posture to hover over his face, with her hat scraping Adris’ brow.
{The fortune she brings is heavy. Ready for it?}
(“She” who!? Hmmm…)
A sidelong glance at the bickering Neesitte and Ave is what Still brings next, making Adris’ still waking mind boil over at the possible meanings.
(Is “she” you, Rantil, Ave, or… Neesiette?)
Ave’s luck is a positive maximum.
Neesiette’s is a negative maximum.
The moment Adris strays with either, he’s likely to earn the worst outcome with Castillo golds jangling in his coin purse.
(Either way, I’ll corrupt it to a [bad good] or a [worse awful].)
No answer comes to mind, but Adris isn’t given time for one as he thinks deeply for a solution.
{Such confusion. Worried~?} Still’s hand strokes his ear, to then pull back to sign with “money”.
{What witch would fear debts owed either way?}
(Debts owed and owed to are the same to you, huh?)
“One good dream is hardly repayment.”
{Dream? Even if you consider me exciting, this isn’t a…?} Still flicks these dismissive signs before stopping when Adris tenses up.
(… Wait… I figured you were the one that gave me that dream from just now?)
After all, Still was beside him when he awoke. The confusion must be so obvious as to tip her off, because Still finds genuine humor in the idea she jokes about after.
{Silly boy, thinking witchcraft can grant pleasant dreams for their own sake~? And how could that possibly pay you back for blessing me with constant attention, liberating me from my only defense against…?} Still crowds especially hard for this one, for Ave’s attention flits over to them with squinting eyes almost as if she has a premonition.
(Witchcraft doesn’t bring pleasant dreams…? Isn’t Ave’s holiness your problem, not mine?)
No answer comes to mind for this catty question, so Adris thinks to just let his inner smile burst forth. If she’s so riled up, then why not soothe her?
Still wavers a bit at that, then twitches when Adris sighs longingly. Like she does, he uses his own battle signs to indicate a string being pulled to snapping point, then both hands rip past after bouncing!
(“The tension is too much”.)
His tongue wets his lips, then he smacks them with a finger.
(“Kiss me”!)
Still tilts her head with what seems like absolute fury, then she goes looser as his joking mood seems to spread. She just signs with an “ok” gesture before swinging her hand over her mask.
Overly large, pursed lips are painted on them after her hand clears it. They get bigger immediately when her plump self fills his view.
(O-Oy…)
Still crawls over him with everyone surrounding, causing Adris’ heart to skip a beat or two when he can no longer escape with her hands tearing at his wrists!
(HEY! HEEEEY, THERE’S OTHERS HERE!?)
With her hat brim slipping over him, though, she makes no motion to remove the flat porcelain mask. Instead, Adris twists his head to keep his nose from being crushed, pursued by a kissfiend who is unwilling to give up forcing him to feel the crisp firmness digging into his bones.
“Ghhshk, Shttilll…!?”
She hunts his lips with her mask by swishing about to the point that his drool coats it.
(This isn’t what I meant!)
“Flirtations cease! If awakened, then now concluding prior discussion, oh Emperor.”
“That seems fun…”
Adris’ salvation comes from two girls leering at the two from the side. Still rolls over to sit on his stomach so as to leave Adris free to receive a barrage of orders.
“Revocation of Kol’s uncontrolled ability be pressing, no doubt deriving from cross. Remedy.”
“How could you dislike so beautiful an artistic expression?” A boring discussion that was ended before his nap revives to his regret, for Neesiette stands like the nag she’s become as late with her hands on her hips and glaring at his lacking obedience.
(Who could ever allow such a useful Talent to escape, even if I could revoke it? It being “uncontrolled” isn’t her fault, nor should it be the fault of someone who merely speaks its name and it goes awry just for that reason. Yep, no fault there, none.)
“Through me, she’ll have an ability that can…?” Adris’ plans for Kol will have to wait until reaching their destination, yet he wants to stretch out like a cat in pleasure at the memory of its magnificent destruction.
A fully-formed Technique only days past awakening to aura is unbelievable, a totally new fascination for him to engage in—!
“Immediate, danger! Near zero, historical restraint of pupil! Solution: forbid entirely, forever!” Neesiette’s near scream rocks Adris from his distant reverie. The two stare eye-to-eye when he flexes his back to rise into the sneak sitting on him.
“No further instruction shall be given regarding ill-advised powers that bring self-destruction! Intrude not into proper course of discipline this lady has already begun over time, if settling merely to cultivate ‘potential usefulness to oneself’ in similarity with one’s own repertoire! Neither destructive distractions nor flights of fancy need such a youth as Kol, with disasters near daily experiences already!”
(Huh!? “YOUTH”!?)
“Kol is no youth!” Everything within sight turns to its sharpest in a moment, and Adris growls at what is dragged closer that seems blurry with how presumptuous it is to want to ruin HIS…!
“Aspiring aura warriors are never children!”
(Kol is the next master to rise!)
His voice also rises when the foolish cower from it!
“Others will crawl the earth like the worms they are, but Kol will challenge godlike beings! No other shall compare, not without having conquered something like that fiery essence inside that only Kol has comprehended. Even your Luna and the stars beyond will quake one day!”
(How dare you try to sell my disciple out so lowly!? What WE couldn’t do… SHE…!?)
“A peerless conquering spirit is the hardest necessity to master, you see? Kol feels no terror over her forthcoming greatness! Surpassing even Serras is possible with that, so don’t dare call my student a CHILD, you…!”
Ah.”
Adris’ snorting is uncouth when done in the perfect face of this Lunamaton, so he catches his breath and releases her short cape from where he grabs it at the half moons.
Neesiette’s expression, one of total shock, slowly melts into placidity as he comports himself. Ave’s own is total, stuck with her hands across her chest in defense.
All in all, Adris fully feels the weight of attacking Neesiette psychically crushing back.
(What…? Why did I get so into that?)
Passionate red ceases to cloud his view. The answer to his own question dances in his mind through sorghum stalks, always chasing him until finally she caught up. Then, she was in front when he had no valid claim to be.
When looking at Kol, even from behind, and having those now not so painful memories resurface produces…?
(Oh, Kol liked that rant.)
It’s easy to tell, because Kol’s long tail weakly drags left-left, then right-right on the buckled wood floor.
It wasn’t meant to appeal to her, but apparently Kol is awake enough to appreciate being built up with a speech.
(But, nobody else did! So, time to recover myself.)
“I’m… too passionate. What Kol longs for, I, too, want to share in that even past what is sane.” Adris nods at Neesiette, offering his hand to take hers up. When she does tepidly accept to have it held, Adris gifts his most genial smile.
“What’s better Neesiette: a power that’s un-mastered? Or nothing at all?”
“Obvious answer be, yet remain dangers do!”
“For that danger, she’s already paid the price herself. As all true aura warriors would, she met hardship, so let’s not weigh too heavily on her. I’ll forestall helping her develop it for now. The mere… thought, the possibility of not properly aiding her, of failing to perfect her… together, was too much in that moment, Miss Senior Instructor.”
“Understandable, such fears be.” Neesiette’s gaze uplifts, softens. “Yet, endeavor not to succumb so readily to despair within this lady’s imminent circle of trust.” As predicted, merely the correct phrasing of Adris’ desire brings a quick pat of his hand with hers closing tighter. “Too inflexible this lady also… rarely stands as when confronting unknowns. For joint instruction’s sake, necessary changeability need be reciprocated.”
“My exuberance is constantly undermining me, haha! Let’s make Kol great.”
After shaking, Neesiette moves off with a permanent smile affixed and her dancing clothing bright in the dimness of the store-hole door she walks toward.
{Gods-damned coward.} Still signs this before hopping up to trail after.
(Shut up, sexy creature of pure spite!)
Adris’ restful nap now seems nightmarish after wrestling with Still, but he still snorts a laugh before turning to Ave.
(Come to think of it, a nap helped me remember something else that was missing.)
“It’s strange, though, Avenalliah.”
“They’re actually acting pretty abnormal, Neesiette should’ve kept…!?
No, nevermind! What is strange?”
Ave’s shock at Adris’ violent outburst hasn’t yet dulled, so Adris tries a cooler tone with her to shift it into an alluring private encounter. His hand slides to her thin shoulders, enjoying the feel of her sashes while Ave tightens up at the touch.
(But you smell sweeter…)
“You all took such good care of my things, but I haven’t received one item back.”
“Hmm? Which is that!? I emptied out everything the maids gave back, then gave Still’s dirks back to her…?”
“On a magical long rope with a lasso, numerous dangerous vials were hooked. It’s an interesting ‘experiment’ that I had Lycia create for me to try.”
“Was that something…?”
Ave’s trapeze bag opens up for her to dig into the deep darkness of it, but what Adris asks for doesn’t produce any response.
“Oh!? That!” She claps the bag closed, then brings her hand up to her face and laughs into it. “Another trick, this soon!? Adris, that’s silly, you used that against Orloss’ protector!”
(I did what?)
“That armored slayer burned up really bad when you hit him. So, Big Sister made that!? No wonder it was so stunning! Everything you did that night was…? Well… it was…” Pride beaming from Ave instead clouds to a lingering dread that makes her lips quiver.
“… Yes, that was a good show. Thanks for humoring me, Ave.”
“Getting into the spirit is good, Adris! The forest of kin is full of wily types that love ruses! You’ll finally be ho—! GHK!?” Ave slaps her face, biting her tongue in mid sentence. “… AT HOME! Yes, at home there…”
(Wait, who did I fight? Did it happen “that night”!?)
Again it surfaces, this mythical night of violence that Adris did so much in to the point of recalling none of it.
The memories are necessary to recover, lest he not comprehend the way in which the four girls view him.
To match prowess he should supposedly possess is impossible. After the Castillo, it should be easy to pretend to be what he is in front of them; but, lately it seems what he actually is has become a myth that he created through circumstances beyond his control.
(Really, what happened the—!?)
The shriek of cold steel being wrenched steals all other sounds from the bolt-hole!
Ave clamps onto Adris and lifts him from the ground, leaving him gasping as both turn toward the source of it.
A splayed-out pile of armor has a chestpiece at its center. It jerks and wobbles on the ground as it uncaves itself. Where the gigantic lobster left its mark finally “heals” to leave only insignificant scars on the black steel. This protection once more courses with red blood through its awakening inner channels.
Burning wolf eyes glance everywhere, raking over Ave so hard that the elf pulls out her bottle of courage and drinks two drops from it, before settling in hatred on Neesiette in the distance.
(It fixes itself with no additional aid from us. Crackbrass… made this demon that mends like a person would.)
The many pieces wobble, but don’t muster sufficient animus to join together yet into its “wolf” form to allow it to move. After the attempt, the armor growls into passivity and its oppressive aura fades.
“Recovery cycle nearly completed for Kol’s golem-armor and opposing forces still thinned within this vicinity by chaos near Castillo front, let us be ready to proceed deeper toward the world tree’s base.” The lady checking outside the bolt-hole climbs down between the levels and back inside. Still makes quick signs, conveying the threats prowling in the area.
(“We’re surrounded… by death and trash”?)
“Now, then, newt.”
“Eh?”
Ave holds her bottle of courage in her hands still, looking around at everyone as she becomes the focus with Neesiette pointing at her bag.
“Miraculous information source, alluded to often but never produced…?”
“Miraculous is a bit of a stretch!”
Kol herself stretches and moans at the ominous gathering, rolling over to gaze up from the ground at Ave in equal anticipation. Now healed of crippling wounds and also tiredness, Kol grunts to urge Ave on.
“Demonstrating in physical form, one could, the origin of it?”
“Hiye—!”
This white-faced Ave hiccups when trying to agree, then pulls up her courage to drop two more drops on top of the two she just swallowed. Nodding quickly, she slides up to Neesiette to heartily shout.
“… Yes! I’d be glad to show you, but outside! Good stories deserve to be shared with nature abounding instead of locked away in the dark!”
“Fourth time this recursion be experienced. Nature, no closer arrives it.”
“It’s obviously a trap!? I didn’t intend to go this far before showing you all, but reading beneath trees is best…!”
At the behest of the snake that keeps rushing between now random pathways, an entire delving party has fallen to the most insane trick that the Alchemaster can thrust on them. Statues of humans driven mad by fear are stuck in the state of fleeing toward the center of a crossroad from the four roads leading away. At the center hovers a replica tower out of reach of their grasps, only partially as big as it’d need to be to let them escape into a bastion.
Shining crystalline strands twist into spiral routes down the paths available. They rise and descend into thick cocooned blockages of the same material. A creepy impression of being watched lingers with the distant clacking of something alive, but as yet unseen. Only through these tunnels could they progress.
(But all paths through them so far lead back here.)
More like an ants nest is how Adris thinks of their predicament, and they will have few chances to overcome it after the first four resulted in arriving back at the crossroads with more strands filling it. Figures in running poses that were once visible now are half-sunk into the woven tunnels. No alternate route over the razor hedges bordering the paths is permitted, as Still’s try to vault them resulted in striking an invisible barrier.
Neesiette studies the tower floating above, flanked by a silent Kol. Outfitted once more in her maddened armor, the kobold keeps to herself. No longer morose, there’s instead deep consideration with where her focus is pointed and how she places herself within reach of all to defend them at a moment’s notice.
(Just like a reliable linchpin should. There’s variances in the thickness of these strands down some of the holes…?)
While Adris ponders their next choice, Ave just shakes her head and pulls up her bag to open it.
“Ah, the wind waits for no one! Here at least there’s sunlight.”
(For now.)
Strands that snake along the path also have bridged overhead, making their routes like caverns.
“Honestly, I never… ever thought that I’d get the chance to share such a great part of my life.” Ave’s reluctance in the store room melted with the brightness of mid-day. Between statues she lays out a cloth over the cobblestone path. “The greatest tale ever told isn’t one that anyone else on Zennia seems to have ever heard? You know, it’s strange how the stories of the elves from before the Third Age don’t seem to be widely circulated amon—?”
“Arrive, to point.”
“Rude!”
Neesiette completes her inspection of the slender tower and its intricate circular ideographic rings in order to join Ave at her setup, earning a cute hiss before Ave continues.
“Well, anyway, you’d think people would care more about the history of kin, since we’ve been here since long before, and we were involved in so much of Zennia’s history…”
Still and Kol also crowd her, with Adris staying at periphery.
Something in the way Ave’s hand struggles to pull the object of her desire from the darkness of her infinite bag sets his heart beating faster.
(I… feel something familiar.)
“And, so, this is great, because now I can show that we’re not just strangers to…!”
“… A-Art…!”
Neesiette stammers her favorite word when the viridescent, large folded leaf pulls out.
In the light filtering through the evil clouds above it does shine with a strange soft aura about it. Plucked from a tree far larger than any Adris has encountered, it’s two-and-a-half hands wide and has seven points that the leaf curls toward. Its thickness is hardly more than half-a-hundred pages, yet it seems so heavy in his sight.
(It’s him! It’s absolutely him!)
Even the stilted atmosphere of this trap crossroad seems to sigh when Ave places the leaf-shaped book upon the ground. Absolutely content, Ave waves for everyone to come closer when they instead draw away.
“You can’t see from that far! I know it doesn’t have a title on the outside, but it’s the genuine Tale of Rou—!”
“One derivation removed: True Art…”
“Art? No, it’s a book! See, pages inside, silly doll! The never-ending tale of the Hero Rouvenor, Human-Then-Fey! A noble wanderer who has crossed the entirety of Zennia thrice, once for each age…!
Or so I peeked ahead to read that, but…?”
(I believe it’s dangerous Art if that one made it!)
Adris’ hands on his butt are too conspicuous once he forces himself to calm, so he pulls them away and closes with the rest. Kol keeps sniffing, finding the giant leaf to be delicious with how she softly cackles.
It’s Still and Neesiette who reverse positions, with Still being pulled by the midget for closer inspection.
“Umu… book it is? And, so?”
“Hmm!?” When Kol ceases to be impressed, Ave blanks for a moment before smiling. “Oh, the outside is nothing compared to within! Behold, the moving pagecraft of kin!
[Show me a fun scene, oh wondrous tale!]”
Ave glides her fingers over the skin of the leaf to its edge, then rips it open to fullness!
Pages of stiff make from an unknown pulp flick with an upsurging wind. When they settle, from the topmost pages rise shapes when stretching out. Words write freely where space is available over the background, the ink seeming to arrive with the whispers of the whipping wind cradling it.
“Pop-up book.” Neesiette’s simple name doesn’t do justice to the intricate figures and scenery that rise to life.
(It’s a mechanical book?)
Adris has never seen such a craft that makes three-dimensional images appear from recessed paper cut outs and lifting flat shapes.
A man dressed in familiar curving armor that bears the weight of forest roots and vines stands beneath a tower held aloft above him.
“‘Four paths are many, three more than one true; long ago we met, yet which brings me you’? I’ve never read this chapter, it seems like he’s afoot on a new quest!”
Stuck in thought as he strokes one of his long ears, this dashing vagabond’s face is hidden by a passing leaf so as to prevent what he decides from showing when the next panel suggests the path he aims at.
“Who is Rouvenor traveling to meet in…?
Wait, isn’t ‘in’ where we are right now!?”
Ave’s question rustles the leaves that the trees in this book’s scenery bear. The paper leaves pull free to swirl around the five shocked delvers, then they scatter around!
“Manifestation of pseudo-Art! Illusionary encirclement, highest-grade!” Neesiette’s warning is far too late for anyone to act when the book trees absent in the real world of now grow from colors spurting from the ground to match.
Fresh and swaying trees of vivid, painted colors breathe up into fullness to tower above.
Grasses lining the sides of the cobblestone poke through the crystalline strands cocooning the four paths. Into vapor these omnipresent impediments poof! Where the were once many tunnels like insects would crawl through, there are only four paths.
To Adris’ right, a stirring brings his cross to bear against an intruder!
(MOTHERFUCKING ELVES!)
Adris’ right foot slides back, leaving him braced against a bluish-green-garbed knight a mere two feet away that smudges into being. Contemplatively enjoying the whistle of the painted wind that rushes by, this stunning warrior that is a man’s height but thinner turns to stare through Adris’ defending black cross.
The very raging heart of the forest and its beasts resides deep within that momentary meeting of their gazes, even though his face is obscured by a broad, floating leaf locked before it to follow all movements.
(… He… saw nothing in me.)
Once the forest-bound man’s gaze turns to rest on the path to his right, the hero dons the stag helmet he held under his arm. A thin and beautiful blade he pulls free, one that sparkles like a rainbow of colors with each depending on the angle that it’s held, slices once to test some bursting-yellow ensorcelment clinging to its edges.
And then down this cobblestone route the painted hero blazes, leaving those enraptured behind him to finally breathe once he is thirty feet down it.
“Newt, annulled a Castillo trap one’s ‘book’ just did. Near Art, claims this lady! FOR PRESERVATION, SURRENDER PROMPTLY!”
{Who the fuck is he, Adris!?}
(Why should I know!?)
Neesiette keeps trying to jump from Still’s arms to sweep up Ave’s opened leaf, yet Kol has already started after the knight.
“Elf! Good feel down that way Kol thinks!” Calling back, Kol waves to follow along. “Like book so far, nice story where way is clear~. See where goes if somebody strong leads.” Then Kol hafts her poleaxe over her shoulder and merrily skips after.
“… A few colorful lights, a scent of elder pine and green oak, sure, that was always fun? But… the Tale never made anything like this happen…!?” Ave chatters to herself quietly, already lifting the still moving book to follow along with Kol. The next page of the book she holds before her pulls up its edge as if savoring to continue.
(Should I trust this creep’s story!? No, but it is Ave…)
Ave + divine intervention = safety.
Ave + opposing her = horrible outcomes.
These are the idiotic calculations and comparison that propels Adris after them.
{You’re — NOT — serious, right?} Furtive signs flicked at Adris don’t deter, though.
With cubist bird shapes chirping from painted trees that might as well be ghosts with how insubstantial they appear, their path forward is entirely un-stealthy. But, the scents popping to life are firm, strong and inviting, and there’s no longer a need to fear unmet monsters hiding in crystalline passages.
(Kol in front and us at the back with enormous caution guiding us…?)
“… Partner, I have a really nice feeling regarding this formation.”
Still shrugs her shoulders at this mystifying statement, then turns to peer ahead.
{Oh.} After setting Neesiette down, but also keeping one of Neesiette’s hands firmly held to keep the doll from lunging for Ave’s book, Still signs with the other to show.
{‘Live bait’ again, how nostalgic~.} Still’s smiling mask is a farce to hide her nervousness, for the sneak tilts toward him before signing further. {… You got right?}
“As long as you’re left.”
Adris spins his cross into a tonfa hold, while Still thrusts a flame-bladed shortsword out that locks into place.
{Like old times…}
“Exactly like that, probably.”
Both nod in unison. They nearly bump shoulder-to-shoulder in their hurry after their fearless squire.
“Utterly deplorable, this easy-going camaraderie regarding sacrificial plays presents as.” Neesiette’s condemnation rings eternally hollow when she gravitates into the small space between the two of them.
(If it’s Ave, it’s bound to be exciting at least.)
And with the fairy tale ahead, Adris plunges into a new story before the last one was even digested.