"...When the many-headed serpent encircles the world; and the darkness of mankind blocks out the sun. Then shall a light arise in the west, to bring light to those in darkness and the shadow of the Enemy's wings...[rest illegible]" -Text Fragment, Altair Lodge, Bracer Guild Records.
Writing this as an attempt to get better at writing, great fun!
Since there are so many characters in Cold Steel, every chapter will have a little spoiler with images and short bios for any new important characters. The only exception being if they are a surprise.
Alfin Reise-Arnor: The princess of the Erebonian Empire, twin with the Crown Prince Cedric. She is fifteen years old and held up as one of the 'national treasures' for her compassionate nature, though her friends know her as a teasing gremlin.
Elise Schwarzer: The younger sister of the protagonist Rean Schwarzer, who is her adopted brother. She is the fifteen-year-old daughter of Teo and Lucia Schwarzer, who rule over the Barony of Ymir in the north of the Erebonian Empire. She is a kind-hearted girl who is willing to give up much for others, especially her older brother.
Toval Randonneur: A B-Rank member at the age of 27 (and rumored to have turned down a promotion to A Rank) of the Bracer Guild in Erebonia, who is famed as the Zero-Artisan for his swift casting and creativity. He was a courier for a certain black-market dealer before joining the Bracer Guild and still retains many of the lessons he learned from that time of his life. He is a cunning and righteous man, who fights on behalf of innocents with everything he has.
November 5th, S.1204
Across the Erebonian Empire, it was a time of great turmoil. On October 30th, The Noble Alliance of the four Great Houses of Cayenne, Albarea, Hyarms, and Rogner had, with the military power of their provincial armies and the newly developed mechanical walkers called 'Panzer Soldats' overthrown the Imperial Government after the successful assassination of Chancellor Gilliath Osborne. Following on this, they quickly seized power across the eastern half of the Empire, and slowly but surely are grinding down the remaining Imperial forces in the west.
It is fortunate then, that a certain member of the royal family had foreseen this coup, and had planned for the removal of his sister the princess to the far reaches of the Empire, in the mountainous barony of Ymir in the province of Nortia.
On the southern outskirts of the northern side of the Vestia Great Forest, a campfire burned lowly. A small band gathered around it, trying vainly to ward off the chill of Erebonian winter. The three were two teenaged girls, one with vibrant blonde hair bundled in a shoddy but serviceable fur cloak. The other with black hair that blended perfectly into the night. Across from them sat a young, blond-haired man tinkering with his combat orbment, muttering frustratedly under his breath.
The black-haired girl, one Elise Schwarzer hummed to herself as she prepared their meal for the night, a beef stew supplemented with the herbs she had found as they hiked through the forest. Next to her, her friend Alfin peered intently into the cooking pot, no longer trying to hide her hunger. The sound of crickets and the softly blowing wind, carrying faint snowflakes that melted into the stew surrounded them. Elise glanced up, and finding the blonde-haired man looking at her, ventured to ask the question that had been on her mind all day.
"Mr. Randonneur... how much longer until we reach Ymir? Oh! And is your orbment okay? I'm sorry I wasn't of more help. I know fighting that insect swarm took a lot out of you."
Toval sighed, setting down his half disassembled orbment, His body deflating in resignation. That had become common, once he gave up on getting her to address him as 'Toval'. "If we keep up the pace, we should reach the lift to Ymir in about four days. Of course, with how hard I've been driving you two I think we could take it a bit slower if you needed it."
Elise felt Alfin's hair hit against her as she vigorously shook her head, "I think it would be best if we kept going as fast as we can! I am sure the break we will take in Elise's hot springs will be amazing! But stopping now in this cold, awful forest...I do not think I could handle it."
Elise's stirring of the pot slowed as she squinted at Alfin, "my hot springs? I think you mean Ymir's...perhaps spending so much time in the wilderness is causing you to lose your mind?"
Alfin leaned back, a smug smirk on her face, "A princess is never wrong, I remember...oh it must have been only a month ago. You said, 'Alfiiiinnnn! Please don't talk about him anymore! I'll give you anything to stop!' And do you know what I asked for, dear Elise?"
Elise moaned in distress, dropping the ladle into the stew as she covered her burning face, "Alfiiiiiiin, not in front of Mr. Randonneur!"
"I asked to take a teensy, weensy dip in your hot springs with your handsome older brother...and you said yes! So, you see, your princess is never wrong!" With that, Alfin broke down in giggles, leaning against Elise for support. Elise smacked her face, trying to clear her embarrassment. Especially as across from them Toval doubled over in a deep belly laugh.
Elise sucked in a deep breath, trying in vain to look authoritative, "You are wrong, princess. I did not say 'yes', what I said was that you would have to ask him yourself."
A few second passed, as Elise rolled up her sleeves and retrieved the ladle and Alfin tried desperately to control her giggling, before she spoke, "Like I said, as if anyone could turn down someone as absolutely adorable as I-" before suddenly being cut off by a bowl of stew thrust into her hands by a pouting Elise. Who then passed another bowl to Toval in a gentler fashion, and with that the three began to eat, Toval's orbment forgotten for the moment.
Or at least, Alfin and Elise began to eat. Toval held his bowl yet seemed to be looking past it, his gaze flitting through the tree branches and undergrowth. Slowly, after the giggling died down and the fires crackling faded to the back, he realized what had set off his instincts. The forest around them had grown silent.
"Elise...grab your rapier right now!"
Unfortunately, Elise who had been in the middle of swallowing froze up like a deer in the sight of a hunter. Perhaps it would have been of help to have her fighting, but she would never know, as the last thing she felt that night was a hand striking the back of her neck. And then she was out like a light.
Toval reacted immediately, lunging forward over the fire with his stun baton aimed like a dagger for the figure's -large, no weapons, unarmored, male- chest. Nimbly, the man evaded him, his gloved hand reaching out and clasping directly onto the stun baton. Blue light shone from the man's hand, and the stun baton became significantly heavier (and more importantly, ceased to have a charge) in Toval's hand. Not wasting a second, Toval dropped the baton and engaged in hand to hand, his long-practiced street brawling coming in handy against the assailant's more refined style -Arseid/no/adaption/Eight Leave's counters- Til with a growl the man leaped back, separated across the campsite from Toval and the still frozen Alfin.
"Give me the princess, Bracer. You already know you cannot beat me without your orbment."
"Sorry buddy, but no can do. How about you take a long walk in the forest and cool your head, faaaaaaaaar away from us."
The man shifted forward, slowly advancing on Toval and Alfin behind him.
"And good job, I've had a feeling we were being followed since we left Heimdallr. Shame pissing off those monsters behind us didn't slow you down."
The man stepped carefully over Elise's unconscious body, and for a second glanced down at her, and in that moment Toval struck. Breaking into a short dash, he slid under the man's instinctual jab and delivered a brutal uppercut to his jaw, followed by a swift kick into where Toval guessed his appendix was. Reaching down, he grabbed Elise's rapier to use as a weapon, only to be met with an iron grip on his wrist. There was a brief pause as he and the man looked at each other, the dark eyes of his attacker looked completely unaffected by what would have stunned many others. Then Toval was sent to his knees by a knee to his stomach and crumpled to the ground when the man hammered into his skull with an elbow. Hacking furiously as he shakingly picked himself up, he could faintly recognize a girl screaming and then her voice cutting short.
His last sight of Alfin Reise-Arnor was a limp, blonde haired girl carried underarm by a cloaked man as he sprinted deeper into the forest. Then he was brought back to staring at the dirt as he hacked up that morning's meal, significantly less tasty the second time.
Alfin awoke with an agonized moan, her head and neck throbbing in pain. Next, she noticed the band of pain around her stomach. After that, the discomfort of laying on a hard, bumpy surface. Lastly, the dryness of a fire's heat against one side of her face.
She, cautiously, with the utmost care opened her eyes, then immediately shut them with a whimper. Burning hot spikes seem to jam their way through her eyelids from the light of the fire. A few seconds later, fabric rustled softly, and footsteps came closer to where she lay on the floor. A male voice, speaking in nearly a whisper hit her ear, "It's good to see you awake princess, now open your mouth."
She could feel a wooden spoon, with something warm inside bump against her pursed lips, and the man sighed. "It's soup, with painkillers mixed in. You really will want it. Now open up."
When she continued to keep her mouth closed, The man spoke again, "You are acting like a child, and no, I'm not reading your mind. You just wear your heart on your sleeve."
Alfin opened her mouth, letting the now lukewarm soup enter. It was...bland and mediocre, with a medicinal aftertaste. Especially compared to those wonderful stews Elise had made...Elise! Alfin bolted up, eyes wide open, then collapsed again with a scream of pain as the fire light blasted through her eyes again and her head ached in every place.
The man calmly spooned up more soup from the bowl he brought with him and turned her head. She, whimpering in pain allowed him to feed her until the spoon bumping wood signaled that she was done. Slowly, the throbbing pain receded, and she was left with a numb, tingly feeling in her neck and eyes. With that, her ability to think returned to her, and her ability to see.
She opened her eyes again slowly, taking in the appearance of the man, no, boy sitting next to her. The mask and cloak he had worn were off. Leaving him dressed in a...Thors school uniform? One that was impressively dirty. Tracking upward, she took in his pale, almost unnaturally so face and his doll-like black eyes framed by black hair matted with dirt. Most striking of all though were the black bags under his eyes, contrastingly heavily against his skin.
Why does he look familiar...
"Good morning princess, it is about dawn a few hours after I kidnapped you. I'm sure you have many questions, some of which I may be able to answer." At that, the boy's lips twitched in an almost imperceptible smile, and he chuckled under his breath.
Alfin sat up, scooting away from him. Her eyes slowly tracked around the cave they were in, against the far wall sat a large steel shield and lance with the boy's cloak draped over its tip. Next to it was a spartan bedroll, set out but looking untouched. On the fire a small cooking pot sat bubbling. The boy himself was standing up, dishing up two more bowls of boiling soup and sat one down In front of her before tipping his back and drinking the entire thing in one go.
Is he okay!? What sort of person just...just does that!?
He, apparently finding her shock funny, sniffed in amusement at her with an unchanged expression. Then he sat there, watching her with his head slightly tilted.
This is not anything like my last kidnapping.
"I... remember you from somewhere. And you are dressed in a Thor's uniform. Who are you?"
The boy nodded, and sat pondering that question for far longer than it should need. "My name is Lucca, if that's what you mean. You probably remember me as a member of Class VII. Though I was in the background when we met you, and did not participate in rescuing you and Elise from the dragon skeleton. I was not intentionally hiding myself. I just wasn't aware I would be kidnapping you until very recently."
Alfin blinked, then blinked at him again in befuddlement. "You...were not aware? How in the world could you not be aware of that!"
Lucca smiled in amusement, paused for a second, and rubbed the back of his head, in a move that almost seemed...practiced? "What can I say? I just go where my gut takes me. Unfortunately for you it took me to hunting you down for the last five days. Sorry about that, you all seemed like you were having fun. And don't worry, I made sure to only knock Elise out. She should feel about the same as you do."
Alfin, fuming, turned away from him, her body pulled inward. There was a long silence as she calmed herself down and Lucca, silent, watched her. Finally, after Alfin's breathing had leveled out and she choked back the angry tears that had come over her, she spoke again. "Why did you kidnap me? Are you working for the Noble Alliance? Do you know where the rest of my family is?"
Instead of a reply, she heard Lucca stand up and walk over to his bedroll. Then she heard him lie down and stretch out with a groan.
"In reverse order, not a clue, no, and I can't tell you that yet because I don't know. Though...actually."
He sat up, staring intently at her as she turned around ready to yell at him. For the first time she could see a real smile on his face as he spoke.
He didn't smile at the party either...now that I can recall him.
"I just learned why, isn't that exciting! So, you see, actually, wait, back up. I recommend not running away while I'm taking a quick rest. I placed a... let's call it a mark on you that'll alert me if you move more than a 100 arge away. It'll wake me up and let me knock you out from pretty much anywhere. I did that using...let's call it magic for now. And the reason I kidnapped you is because I'm supposed to teach you that... magic. Isn't that splendid!"
Alfin couldn't help choking as her planned tirade died in her throat from the shock. "What...what do you mean, teach me! Are you insane! You kidnapped me, dragged me away from my friend! Into a stupid, dark, dirty cave! Just to teach me-" And even worse, she couldn't help the sobs that cut her off.
Lucca laid back down and swiftly fell asleep to the relaxing ambience of the muffled cries of a princess.
AN: gosh, I am not particularly happy with this chapter, but we all have to start somewhere, right? Anyway, if anyone has suggestions for a good image of Lucca I would love to see them. I have negative artistic skill, and somehow even less skill or desire to use AI. His shield is a tower shield for reference, though Alfin doesn't know anything about weapons and such yet.
While I find giving exact height measurements in a story immersion breaking, I imagine him at a little less than a foot taller than Alfin, who in the reuniting scene on the Pantagruel looks to be about a head shorter than Rean (who is 5,8 at that time). So, I'd place her at about 5,4, maybe 5,6 by CS4 if she grows any more.
AN: a note on measurements, it goes:
1 rege = 1 centimeter
1 arge = 1 meter
1 selge = 100 meters (most distances are expressed in selge, for instance the field study area being a radius of 200 selge.)
There is no kilometer analogue
Rean Schwarzer: The eighteen-year-old adopted son of Teo and Lucia Schwarzer, and the heir of the Barony of Ymir. He is an intermediate practitioner of the Eight Leaves, One Blade school of martial arts, and as such wields the protagonist weapon of choice...a tachi (not a katana surprisingly). He is a self-sacrificing individual and, despite his doubts, a true hero. At the beginning of the civil war, he is struck down by Crow Armbrust in his mech Ordine during Rean's first time wielding his mech Valimar (we'll meet those other three later). His whereabouts are currently unknown.
Laura S. Arseid: The seventeen-year-old daughter of the Viscount Victor S. Arseid, lord of the town of Legram. Laura is an intermediate practitioner of the Arseid school of martial arts, and extremely capable in combat. She is a driven woman who gladly takes on challenges to grow stronger, especially in overcoming the evil of her nation.
November 6th, S.1204
Sometime later, after Alfin slowly brought her tears to a halt and reoriented herself, she noticed a faint light cresting the floor of the cave. With new eyes she was able to see what had been shadowed earlier in the night. Against the far wall from her lay her captor, one Lucca of Class VII, who was asleep on the cave floor on an almost nonexistent bedroll.
He had turned away from her in his sleep and almost seemed to be using his massive shield as a pillow, his body twisted in a way that made her back ache. Next to the shield was a lance that looked larger and heavier than she was, an intimidating cone of steel with a scrappy dark cloak draped over the top. Looking closer she could even see a backpack peeking out from behind the shield with what looked to be an ARCUS unit hanging from it by a chain. The fire had died not long ago, and the soup on top of it looked even less appetizing than it tasted before.
Slowly standing up, Alfin tip-toed her way to the entrance of the cave. Blinking furiously in the morning light she could see that Lucca had positioned them in a cave inside a small hill overlooking a clearing in the forest. Around them stretched trees for as far as she could see, and an assortment of animals and monsters roamed around without a care. Many of them the same type of strange insects Toval had fought the previous day.
Tip-toeing back into the cave, Alfin slowly unlatched the ARCUS unit from the bag and made her way back outside, only breathing when she had stepped a few feet outside the cave. Flipping it open, she pursed her lips at the configuration. She had always favored Fire and Mirage arts, yet her captor was clearly preferenced towards Earth and Time.
As she activated the orbment, information filtered into her mind. The Master Quartz was Emblem, a Space Quartz that protected the user from harm the more they had been hurt. Filling the slots were a mix of Earth defense quartz and two for the arts Earth Lance and Grand Press. That along with the Master Quartz's Golden Spheres would provide her with a workable amount of offense.
Clearly this man is meant to be a monster of endurance, I guess it is not that surprising considering he followed us for five days, and he did not look like he slept at all.
Alfin snapped closed the ARCUS, and slowly made her way down the hill, heading forward in the hope it would take her out of the forest.
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Gasping, Alfin fell to the ground. Around her lay strewn the corpses of a flight of those white insect things with rainbow-colored wings. She scratched in vain at the places she had been struck by their dust attacks. Yet no matter how hard she clawed at them she couldn't get the itch to fade. And that wasn't even taking into account the matter of the (monster) blood and dust in her hair!
Drawing in a deep breath and exhaling slowly, she pulled up the ARCUS unit and checked the time. It had only been about two hours, and she had gone much much farther than 100 arge away from Lucca's cave. Saying that, she really had...no idea where she was. No matter how far she walked there were no landmarks. At least with the compass in the ARCUS she could tell she was heading vaguely northward, which was the direction Ymir should be in.
Picking herself up, she made her way deeper in the forest for another thirty or so minutes, stomach aching with hunger and mouth as dry as a desert. Eventually, she stumbled upon a small pond in a clearing. With a cry she sprinted forward and fell to her knees in front of the pond and began desperately drinking from it. After filling her stomach to the point it hurt, she quickly scrubbed off the dust and grime from her face and looked at herself in the settling water.
Her face looked thinner and paler than it had just a week ago, and after her trek through the forest her beautiful hair was completely ruined. Blood and dirt and dust were caked through it completely from when she had tripped and fallen over a raccoon thing and its friends after killing them.
The traveling clothes Toval had procured for her were likewise just as dirty and now torn in quite a few places. Idly she wondered how Rean or Laura could go around in school uniforms and be fine fighting, when her clothes were trashed after only a few hours of trekking. She hastily looked around her, and seeing no monsters or people began taking off her cloak and then unlacing her boots. She would need to bathe to remove the dust from those insects and try to clean as much out of her hair as possible.
Distracted as she was by trying to remove mud caked laces, she only noticed the sound of footsteps behind her right as they stopped.
"I see you finally decided to rest, you did a good job making it this far princess. But I wasn't lying about being able to track you. I can't say I expected you to be such a proficient arts user though."
Scrambling desperately, one boot off and another half pulled, Alfin grabbed the ARCUS and turned while casting Earth Lance at her captor; yet found herself both simultaneously tripping over her feet and seized in a vice like grip around her wrists by one of his hands. The other grabbed the ARCUS and yanked it from her, stuffing it into a pocket of his pants.
"Didn't your parents ever teach you stealing is wrong?"
Alfin wrenched herself from his grip with a frustrated scream and collapsed to the ground, turning away from him.
"Did your parents never tell you kidnapping was wrong!?"
"Nope, but I don't have any parents so it would be difficult for them to tell me anything."
Alfin turned, blinking in confusion. "What in Aidios name do you mean? Everyone has parents you...you idiot!" Then she clasped her hands over her mouth in shock; yet was only met with Lucca tilting her head at her in confusion.
"Of course they do, princess. Except me."
With that, he shrugged and sat down beside her. Dropping the pack on his back -with lance and shield strapped to it- onto the dirt. "Now, you did a very good job getting here, but frankly you absolutely suck at fighting. So how about you get cleaned up, and then I can show you how to actually fight while we make our way out of this forest."
Alfin was silent for a long time, staring at her reflection in the pond. "You said you kidnapped me because you are supposed to teach me magic... what does that mean?"
Lucca hummed, "That's a difficult question, since most of what I do I just know without anyone teaching me, and what I found while researching at Thors were half-myth and half-fantasy. But I can try to give an overview."
Lucca stood up, as Alfin turned to track him. He stopped a few feet from her and slammed his hands down into the dirt. From them came a blue glow, and a sort of suction effect that dragged the ground towards him and upward. Alfin felt her jaw drop as the dirt flowed upwards and morphed into a steel rod, and then slowly emerged from the ground until an entirely steel spear was just...there...in his hands...by magic!
"How in Aidios name! That is impossible! You cannot... you should not... what did you do!?"
Lucca planted the spear back in the dirt and turned to look at her. "I called it magic before, but its proper name is Alchemy, which as I learned is a heretical art that the Septian church has banned. It is not the only type of magic, if what I have seen and read is correct, and both are different than what artifacts and orbments do. If I had to...summarize it...I would say Alchemy is the art of enforcing your will, your imagination upon the world. That is what I am supposed to teach you, apparently. I hope that serves as sufficient proof, and you won't go running off again."
Those last three words were accompanied by an intense glare, that caused the hair on the back Alfin's neck to stand up. With an eep she covered her eyes and curled inward more.
"I'm sorry princess, I didn't intend to scare you. I am just worried about your health. And, I haven't gotten a good sleep in nearly a week, and you are the reason the one I was looking forward to was interrupted. So please excuse my frustration."
Faintly, Lucca could hear Alfin mumble into her hands, "I'm sorry." And then pulling her hands away suddenly she pointed at him, fire in her eyes. "Wait! No I am not! You are the jerk who kidnapped me and beat up my friend! I hope you do not get any sleep at all!" With that, she huffed and went back to slowly taking off her boot.
Lucca, watching her for a second, shrugged and spoke, "I am leaving a knife here, if you would like to cut your hair down. I will be hunting for food, please wait here when you are done bathing. I will leave my ARCUS just in case you need to defend yourself."
Alfin kept her silence as she heard him retrieve his knife and ARCUS and drop them next to her, then unstrap his lance and don his pack. Turning to look at him, she watched as he disappeared into the dense foliage. And then she was completely alone.
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Much later, after far too much furious scrubbing with the fabric of her cloak, Alfin finally felt clean. While she didn't have any other clothes to wear, and so had left her current outfit unwashed, she had been able to slowly scrub off much of the blood and mud and insect dust on them to make them wearable again. The only thing left to do...was to cut her hair.
Will people even recognize me after? With these dirty clothes and short hair, I'll look like some sort of...runaway noble or dirty mercenary.
With shaking hands, she leaned over the pool and held up the hunting knife. She could see her reflection in it and the pool and watched with a strange disassociation as a single tear trailed down her cheek and fell into the pond, distorting her reflection. Three more fell, before she wetly breathed in through her nose and choked them back. Then, with her other shaking hand she bundled up all her hair below her shoulders, matted and tangled with grime she hadn't been able to clean. Raising the knife, she took one last long look at herself, then began cutting.
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AN:
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