Which is nice and gets you some extra leeway because now "Yup, I'm a heretic" is on the "Don't kill the Queen (and throw the entire region into a nasty, destructive Civil War)" side of the scales, but there is a point where people will stop caring.
The Steep Path Ahead [Familiar of Zero AU]
- Thread starter shadenight123
- Start date
- Location
- The Old Dominion
The thrust-hold is higher though and people rebelling are likely to throw their support behind a branch of the royal family which would also have the blood line ala the Anarchy, the war of the roses and numerous other civil wars which is what happened to canon Joseph via the Pope's manipulations.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Which Karin's husband and Louise have. So alienating that family is dangerous.
Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
- Location
- Twin Realms Mandala
Then they should have told the mercenary to take one last look at his men, and then informed him that he was going to be put to sleep, no negotiating, but if their friends were killed or harmed in any way by his stubborn personal tantrum at having to come out on top of the conflict, then his men will he killed too!
But not him! He will face a worse fate! Being carved up while still alive and delivered to Count Mott who will be informed that that man was the one to kill the maid.
Seriously, while I would've left them alive the first time, this time I would've killed the whole group! They may not kill surrendered combatants, but they threatened to kill a noncombatant!
I hate it when bandits pull that whole surrender or we kill the hostage maneuver, especially when its clear surrendering would be just as bad or worse for the hostage!
Edit: Had not yet seen the multi page argument that was started after the post I Quoted when I wrote this reply. Sorry if it ruffled any feathers, I am still catching up on the story! And any irritation I may have displayed is aimed entirely at the bandits not at any other posters!
Edit2: I did write from the assumption that I the characters had an opportunity to cast spells, since that was what I interpreted the passage as, because why would they need to threaten a hostage if they could just prevent Louise from casting themselves? However it could be interpreted differently, and it is entirely up to Shade which interpretation is correct.
If there was no such opportunity, my actions would be different. I would have been even more disgusted that they threatened the life of an unarmed, unresisting hostage needlessly. And once an opportunity like they had later opened up, I would have made sure they never awoke.
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Chapter Fifty-Seven
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Fifty-Seven
The next morning saw a bright and shining day welcome a hair-rumpled Louise and a yawning Saito down in the inn's main hall early to catch the boat towards Albion.
Josette welcomed them with a smile that would have been fit for an angel, at least to Saito's interpretation. "Good morning!" she said cheerfully, only to receive a half-gurgling reply from Saito. On the other hand, Louise was quick to wake. "I'm Louis, adventurer, triangle water and fire mage," she said gruffly, extending a hand towards Josette. "We should make proper presentations."
"Oh! I'm so honored!" Josette said with a honest and awestruck voice, clutching the hand and shaking it like an overactive squirrel. "I'm Josette-I'm a Dot Water mage!" she smiled with such brightness that, if Saito had doubts on her being an angel descended from heaven, his doubts would have washed away under the light coming from that cheerfulness.
"This is Jeanette! She's quick on her feet and uses daggers! She's also an Alchemist-" as Josette made the presentation of the light purple haired girl, Saito instinctively took a step back, "And a Dot Wind mage!"
"Josette," Jeanette said with a warm smile, "I can present myself just fine," the girl said, making a prim bow which would have been enhanced had she been in a frilly ball gown, but which was pretty cute all by itself -if Saito could think so, and he most definitely could think so. He still took a step back because, as always, Alchemists always seemed to brew trouble wherever they went.
Oh, an alchemist 'Brewing trouble'. He most definitely had to use that joke sometimes.
"I am Jacques," the burly man behind both girls said. "I am their older brother," he looked down at the two adventurers and narrowed his eyes with the same glare an overprotective father would give a would-be son-in-law. The fact he had a big slab of iron on his back just made the glare all the more convincing. "Earth Dot."
"Well-" Saito said with a chuckle. "I'm just a normal mercenary," he scratched the side of his cheek. "But I'm good with any weapon."
As he mentioned that, he shifted his bow a bit to reveal pretty much the lance on his back, the sword by his hip, and the daggers by his belt.
"Oh, that's great!" Josette said cheerfully. "You must be seasoned adventurers then! Are you going to Albion to fight the war or to deal with the clean-up?" as she asked that, she began to walk out of the inn and towards the docks, which were placed quite high -since the ships were flying, they didn't really need to be 'ground level'. "I heard there are a lot of monsters now, and feral familiars-like young dragons, manticores, even a few Chimera!"
"What about you?" Louise asked in turn roughly. "Aren't you a bit too inexperience to fight a war?"
"It shows, doesn't it?" Josette asked with a slight wince. "But-you see, the Abbess really needed the money for the church, and we three, well, Gallia doesn't really have a mean to teach bastard daughters and sons in a fancy academy like the other countries have. We're all 'fallen nobles' bastards here, so we decided we'd stick together. We did small jobs around the abbey and got enough money for our 'big start'. And now here we are! If we're really good, we might even bring back a whole bag of Ecus for the Abbess!" there were stars in her eyes.
Such innocence was something that physically hurt to watch. If Saito had to describe Josette in one catchy sentence, it would be something like 'This cute girl can't be this innocent!'.
"Clean-up," Jacques said with a rumbling voice. "We will be doing clean-up."
"Yeah, that," Josette said with a sigh. "B-But we'd be really good in a fight! We took down that rabid dog, didn't we? It was terrorizing the countryside!"
"Josette-it was a mangy mutt that needed a piece of meat to stop being terrifying," Jeanette said kindly, sighing and shaking her head at the young girl's antiques. The more he looked at the Trio, the more it seemed less like they were brothers and more like Josette was the 'kid' of the father-mother duo.
The way Josette closed her eyes and moved the staff around seemed to settle it too, since she was kind-of trying her hardest not to show how embarrassed she was.
"That is more acceptable," Louis said suddenly, her expression a glare and her arms crossed in front of her chest. "Frankly, if you had told me you were going to fight in the middle of a battlefield I would have done everyone a service and had Saito knock you three out. He's fast enough he can do it," she glared next. "Didn't you think how worried the Abbess might be if all she'll see at the end of the day is only one of you coming back with the remains of the others? Fighting monsters isn't a game. Saito and I have the wounds to show for it! And enemy mages are terrifying! You never know what spells they might know, or how they might fight-haven't you heard the tales? There are a lot of bandit mages that are so strong, they can make lightning fall from the sky!"
"B-But the more dangerous the mission, the more money it makes!" Josette shot back.
"Money's not everything in life, kid!" Louise said hotly. "You need to know your limits," Saito coughed awkwardly, "When to stop," Saito coughed again, "When not to enter a fight you can't possibly win," Saito coughed even harder, "Saito, are you perchance sick?"
"No, no, just something in the back of my throat," Saito said with a light chuckle.
"Do you want a honey candy?" Louise asked with her 'manly' voice, propping out of her belt a small pouch. The trio of newly minted adventurers in front of the duo began to salivate like hungry wolves, and, just because Louise couldn't help but show pity and care, she offered a candy to each of them.
Five content adventurers thus walked upon the ship of Captain Morgan, who was apparently a lanky teen with blond hair and a foppish hat, with a rapier by his side. "Welcome! Welcome to all!" he said with wide gesture of his hat. "I am Captain Morgan Bleu, but you may call me 'Bleu'! This ship sails routinely to Londinium, so all are welcomed aboard! As long as you pay the fare, that is."
He wriggled his eyebrows, "Oh-Mademoiselles Josette and Jeanette! You two are splendid as the day we met-"
"Yesterday," Jeanette said flatly. "We met yesterday."
"Of course, but still I kept your lovely faces in my heart!" the teen said, his hat to his chest. "Well-" he looked at the two new arrivals. "We'll set sail as soon as we haggle out the price for the trip."
Louise's eyes shone at the word 'Haggle'.
Saito, simply, settled his back against the wooden guard of the ship and chuckled, muttering a quick prayer for the poor bastard.
In the end, when the ship set sail, they were simply hired to provide security for the duration of the trip rather than have to pay anything at all.
Louise was a fearsome monster when it came to haggling.
A fearsome, but ultimately cute, monster.
The next morning saw a bright and shining day welcome a hair-rumpled Louise and a yawning Saito down in the inn's main hall early to catch the boat towards Albion.
Josette welcomed them with a smile that would have been fit for an angel, at least to Saito's interpretation. "Good morning!" she said cheerfully, only to receive a half-gurgling reply from Saito. On the other hand, Louise was quick to wake. "I'm Louis, adventurer, triangle water and fire mage," she said gruffly, extending a hand towards Josette. "We should make proper presentations."
"Oh! I'm so honored!" Josette said with a honest and awestruck voice, clutching the hand and shaking it like an overactive squirrel. "I'm Josette-I'm a Dot Water mage!" she smiled with such brightness that, if Saito had doubts on her being an angel descended from heaven, his doubts would have washed away under the light coming from that cheerfulness.
"This is Jeanette! She's quick on her feet and uses daggers! She's also an Alchemist-" as Josette made the presentation of the light purple haired girl, Saito instinctively took a step back, "And a Dot Wind mage!"
"Josette," Jeanette said with a warm smile, "I can present myself just fine," the girl said, making a prim bow which would have been enhanced had she been in a frilly ball gown, but which was pretty cute all by itself -if Saito could think so, and he most definitely could think so. He still took a step back because, as always, Alchemists always seemed to brew trouble wherever they went.
Oh, an alchemist 'Brewing trouble'. He most definitely had to use that joke sometimes.
"I am Jacques," the burly man behind both girls said. "I am their older brother," he looked down at the two adventurers and narrowed his eyes with the same glare an overprotective father would give a would-be son-in-law. The fact he had a big slab of iron on his back just made the glare all the more convincing. "Earth Dot."
"Well-" Saito said with a chuckle. "I'm just a normal mercenary," he scratched the side of his cheek. "But I'm good with any weapon."
As he mentioned that, he shifted his bow a bit to reveal pretty much the lance on his back, the sword by his hip, and the daggers by his belt.
"Oh, that's great!" Josette said cheerfully. "You must be seasoned adventurers then! Are you going to Albion to fight the war or to deal with the clean-up?" as she asked that, she began to walk out of the inn and towards the docks, which were placed quite high -since the ships were flying, they didn't really need to be 'ground level'. "I heard there are a lot of monsters now, and feral familiars-like young dragons, manticores, even a few Chimera!"
"What about you?" Louise asked in turn roughly. "Aren't you a bit too inexperience to fight a war?"
"It shows, doesn't it?" Josette asked with a slight wince. "But-you see, the Abbess really needed the money for the church, and we three, well, Gallia doesn't really have a mean to teach bastard daughters and sons in a fancy academy like the other countries have. We're all 'fallen nobles' bastards here, so we decided we'd stick together. We did small jobs around the abbey and got enough money for our 'big start'. And now here we are! If we're really good, we might even bring back a whole bag of Ecus for the Abbess!" there were stars in her eyes.
Such innocence was something that physically hurt to watch. If Saito had to describe Josette in one catchy sentence, it would be something like 'This cute girl can't be this innocent!'.
"Clean-up," Jacques said with a rumbling voice. "We will be doing clean-up."
"Yeah, that," Josette said with a sigh. "B-But we'd be really good in a fight! We took down that rabid dog, didn't we? It was terrorizing the countryside!"
"Josette-it was a mangy mutt that needed a piece of meat to stop being terrifying," Jeanette said kindly, sighing and shaking her head at the young girl's antiques. The more he looked at the Trio, the more it seemed less like they were brothers and more like Josette was the 'kid' of the father-mother duo.
The way Josette closed her eyes and moved the staff around seemed to settle it too, since she was kind-of trying her hardest not to show how embarrassed she was.
"That is more acceptable," Louis said suddenly, her expression a glare and her arms crossed in front of her chest. "Frankly, if you had told me you were going to fight in the middle of a battlefield I would have done everyone a service and had Saito knock you three out. He's fast enough he can do it," she glared next. "Didn't you think how worried the Abbess might be if all she'll see at the end of the day is only one of you coming back with the remains of the others? Fighting monsters isn't a game. Saito and I have the wounds to show for it! And enemy mages are terrifying! You never know what spells they might know, or how they might fight-haven't you heard the tales? There are a lot of bandit mages that are so strong, they can make lightning fall from the sky!"
"B-But the more dangerous the mission, the more money it makes!" Josette shot back.
"Money's not everything in life, kid!" Louise said hotly. "You need to know your limits," Saito coughed awkwardly, "When to stop," Saito coughed again, "When not to enter a fight you can't possibly win," Saito coughed even harder, "Saito, are you perchance sick?"
"No, no, just something in the back of my throat," Saito said with a light chuckle.
"Do you want a honey candy?" Louise asked with her 'manly' voice, propping out of her belt a small pouch. The trio of newly minted adventurers in front of the duo began to salivate like hungry wolves, and, just because Louise couldn't help but show pity and care, she offered a candy to each of them.
Five content adventurers thus walked upon the ship of Captain Morgan, who was apparently a lanky teen with blond hair and a foppish hat, with a rapier by his side. "Welcome! Welcome to all!" he said with wide gesture of his hat. "I am Captain Morgan Bleu, but you may call me 'Bleu'! This ship sails routinely to Londinium, so all are welcomed aboard! As long as you pay the fare, that is."
He wriggled his eyebrows, "Oh-Mademoiselles Josette and Jeanette! You two are splendid as the day we met-"
"Yesterday," Jeanette said flatly. "We met yesterday."
"Of course, but still I kept your lovely faces in my heart!" the teen said, his hat to his chest. "Well-" he looked at the two new arrivals. "We'll set sail as soon as we haggle out the price for the trip."
Louise's eyes shone at the word 'Haggle'.
Saito, simply, settled his back against the wooden guard of the ship and chuckled, muttering a quick prayer for the poor bastard.
In the end, when the ship set sail, they were simply hired to provide security for the duration of the trip rather than have to pay anything at all.
Louise was a fearsome monster when it came to haggling.
A fearsome, but ultimately cute, monster.
- Location
- USA
They are already dead.
Either they are the most competent spies I have seen in a while or they will die in some horrible fashion...
The tags are a lie! I knew it all along!
edit: looks like one dies
Money is on the naive one
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Either they are the most competent spies I have seen in a while or they will die in some horrible fashion...
The tags are a lie! I knew it all along!
Wrong. The most competent spy you have seen in a while is obviously Cardinal Mazarin! He has even got Shade fooled into presenting him as a reasonable statesman!
Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
girl's antics.
These three new companions are a bit odd, I must say. Well, perhaps 'naive' is a better word for them?
arent those the three vamps with Valliere? the two girls that took a taste of blood from saito and louise and the guy they talked about?
Generalissimo
Generalissimo of SufficientVelocity
- Location
- Tropico, Tropico
Always remember Charlotte has an identical twin sister.
It's possible Louise and Saito have actually been working for Josette from the beginning!
Josette is Charlotte. Charlotte is Josette.
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- Location
- The Old Dominion
No Josette in canon would be Charlotte's twin sister put into a monastery for her own safety by her mother sometime before said mother drank poison meant for Charlotte. The other two were in canon knights from a branch of Gallia's military who carry out Gallia' dirty work... Kidnapping, spying ,assassinations, cleaning up the aftermath of Gallia's illegal magical experiments and so forth.
Dimensionist
Grandmaster of Apologism, Keeper of the Faith
- Location
- Bangalore, India
More inexperienced than naive, I'd wager.
But I'm pretty sure they're faking it, so it's not even that in the end.
Josette
Chapter Fifty-Eight
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Saito held on to the wooden guard of the boat as it departed, his eyes watching with dread as the land below kept distancing itself, replaced by the vast ocean of blue water. Up above, in the far off horizon, the floating island of Albion was but a far-off dot. "It's said that once, Albion was a land just like any others," Josette said, her voice catching Saito off-guard as he was busy contemplating the clouds.
The boy turned to look at the dark haired girl, who held on to her staff. "The legends say that one day, the people of Halkeginia decided to stop waging war against the Elves. They were tired of bloodshed, tired of not hearing the Founder's voice, and that they could just live in peace with the Elves if they stopped attacking."
Josette looked up at the floating island. "The gods took offense to that, and with thunder and shaking grounds they ripped the land of Albion off the ground and into the sky, where it will stay until the point where, tired by mankind's inaction, it will come crashing down on our heads and punish the wicked, the sinner, and the heretic."
She clutched on to her staff then, and smiled awkwardly. "That is what the Abbess used to say. If you do something naughty, and you aren't caught just yet, it doesn't mean the Gods approve. It just means the island has yet to fall on your head," she fidgeted with her fingers together. "I-I hope I'm not boring you, Mister Saito? It's just that Jacques' sick and Jeanette is taking care of him, so I'm feeling a bit lonely-"
"It's fine," Saito said. "Louis' busy running around like a little kid. It's his first time on a flying boat, and he wants to savor the feeling," he added. There was an awkward few minutes of silence, neither knowing what to speak of.
"So-" Josette said, breaking the silence first. "You fought lots of strong creatures?!" her eyes were shining and sparkling jewels of curiosity, her fists held tightly beneath her chins to grab at the hem of her clothes, she looked up with pure hope on her face.
Saito smiled, and brightly began to recount his adventures. The girl had wide eyes all throughout his tales, and as she ended up sitting down to keenly listen on, so too did Saito do the same.
"And there was that time with the man-eating plants! I had Louis slung over my shoulder, a sword in hand, and these things with teeth coming down to eat me! And there was this golem following us-it was really a nasty situation, there seemed to be no escape!"
"Oh!" Josette had both hands in front of her face, her skin pale. "That must have been scary!"
"It wasn't, not really," Saito replied. "It was annoying, kind-of. I used my sword to cut my way quickly through the plants, while the golem was too slow and had to slow down. Also-I discovered the mage's familiar was a spider, so when I found out-" a hand gingerly gripped his shoulder, and as he turned, Louise's kind and loving smile clearly showed itself through the mask, together with her gaze.
"Saito-are you filling the girl's head with nonsense?" Louise asked in her 'manly' and 'angry' voice. "Did you tell her of those times I saved your life? Like against those mercenaries?"
"I was getting to that part, Louis," Saito said. "Maybe later-"
Josette's eyes were wide as Louise took over Saito's role, and as she clapped in sheer thrill, she remained a dutiful listener until the very end.
"You are both so awesome!" Josette said, "I hope I can be like you one day!" she clasped both of her hands tightly as if praying, her eyes holding tears of delight in their corners. "Do you both adventure for the thrill of it? Or is there a lady you are trying to woo? Is it that perhaps you are already married? Oh! Were you banished because of forbidden love for a noble lady or-"
"N-Nothing of the sort!" Louise rambled out, crossing her arms in front of her. "Really! We just felt like it, and decided to start. Then everything else happened."
"So...you're adventurers for fun?" Josette asked, her brows furrowed and her expression puzzled. "But then-then there's no one waiting for you back home?" she asked next, a little bit of sadness creeping in her voice.
"I-It's not like that!" Saito exclaimed. "Look..." he sighed, "You have to understand it's not easy to say so," there were tears falling down Saito's eyes as he realized there was only one way out of the curious and innocent look on the girl's face. It was the only way, but even then, it hurt to say it, "Because there is a lot of prejudice-but the truth is that Louis and I...we are a couple."
"B-But you're both males," Josette said, looking from Louis to Saito. "How does that work?"
"That's-That's nothing a proper lady should know!" Louise snapped in a 'manly' voice, making Josette blink and wince at the shrillness of the voice. "Still! You have to keep it a secret. It's bad publicity, but-"
"So you had to escape in order to love each other!" Josette's eyes were suddenly sparkling once more as she grabbed one of Saito's and one of Louise's hands, uniting them with her own clasped over them. "That's just so beautiful! I am sure love will definitely triumph between you two!"
Saito's tears would have filled an ocean. He was never going to break free from this misunderstanding, was he?
"Josette!" Jeanette said from below the deck, only her head coming out. "Stop disturbing the two kind adventurers and get down here! Jacques' feeling better and we have to decide where to start looking for work!"
"Oh-Oh right!" Josette blinked as she let go of both of their hands, bowing primly as she waved them goodbye and hurried below deck.
"Louis-" Saito began, only for Louise to let go of his hand and sigh.
"There are a lot of people counting on us, Saito," Louise whispered. "We can't babysit a group of children-of orphan children-of orphan, noble bastards children-just because one of them has a sparkling 'please hug me now' look."
"Please?" Saito hazarded.
"Just as far as Londinium," Louise said firmly. "And anyway, it's just because we're headed in the same direction and a proud nun of Brimir would do that. Even if I'm not a nun," she added with her 'manly' voice. "So-only as long as we're looking for those things, and as long as they don't slow us down-" she gave him a soft glance. "You'd be horrible with children, spoiling them rotten."
Saito simply chuckled at that. "Well, I am too young to have children. Back where I'm from, you need to be at least twenty to be considered a proper adult."
"Strange," Louise said. "But it explains so, so much," Louise said, and then dropped down right by Saito's side, letting her back be held by Saito's shoulder. Holding a knee close to herself with both of her arms, she sighed.
Captain Morgan didn't move from the helm of the ship, simply whistling a catchy tune as the land of Albion drew closer and closer.
"Oh my," he remarked with a dry smile. "Just in time~" he said. A small group of drakes seemed to be flying nimbly down from Albion and towards the ship, "The welcoming committee."
It was a patrol of four Dragon Knights from Albion. Three were white and nimble, but one was instead crimson and slightly bulkier. "Three wind drakes and a fire one, standard practice then-"
It was only when they drew nearer that 'Captain' Morgan Bleu realized something.
The four dragons were devoid of knights.
This meant they were wild familiars.
This also meant the peaceful trip was about to turn very, very badly.
Saito held on to the wooden guard of the boat as it departed, his eyes watching with dread as the land below kept distancing itself, replaced by the vast ocean of blue water. Up above, in the far off horizon, the floating island of Albion was but a far-off dot. "It's said that once, Albion was a land just like any others," Josette said, her voice catching Saito off-guard as he was busy contemplating the clouds.
The boy turned to look at the dark haired girl, who held on to her staff. "The legends say that one day, the people of Halkeginia decided to stop waging war against the Elves. They were tired of bloodshed, tired of not hearing the Founder's voice, and that they could just live in peace with the Elves if they stopped attacking."
Josette looked up at the floating island. "The gods took offense to that, and with thunder and shaking grounds they ripped the land of Albion off the ground and into the sky, where it will stay until the point where, tired by mankind's inaction, it will come crashing down on our heads and punish the wicked, the sinner, and the heretic."
She clutched on to her staff then, and smiled awkwardly. "That is what the Abbess used to say. If you do something naughty, and you aren't caught just yet, it doesn't mean the Gods approve. It just means the island has yet to fall on your head," she fidgeted with her fingers together. "I-I hope I'm not boring you, Mister Saito? It's just that Jacques' sick and Jeanette is taking care of him, so I'm feeling a bit lonely-"
"It's fine," Saito said. "Louis' busy running around like a little kid. It's his first time on a flying boat, and he wants to savor the feeling," he added. There was an awkward few minutes of silence, neither knowing what to speak of.
"So-" Josette said, breaking the silence first. "You fought lots of strong creatures?!" her eyes were shining and sparkling jewels of curiosity, her fists held tightly beneath her chins to grab at the hem of her clothes, she looked up with pure hope on her face.
Saito smiled, and brightly began to recount his adventures. The girl had wide eyes all throughout his tales, and as she ended up sitting down to keenly listen on, so too did Saito do the same.
"And there was that time with the man-eating plants! I had Louis slung over my shoulder, a sword in hand, and these things with teeth coming down to eat me! And there was this golem following us-it was really a nasty situation, there seemed to be no escape!"
"Oh!" Josette had both hands in front of her face, her skin pale. "That must have been scary!"
"It wasn't, not really," Saito replied. "It was annoying, kind-of. I used my sword to cut my way quickly through the plants, while the golem was too slow and had to slow down. Also-I discovered the mage's familiar was a spider, so when I found out-" a hand gingerly gripped his shoulder, and as he turned, Louise's kind and loving smile clearly showed itself through the mask, together with her gaze.
"Saito-are you filling the girl's head with nonsense?" Louise asked in her 'manly' and 'angry' voice. "Did you tell her of those times I saved your life? Like against those mercenaries?"
"I was getting to that part, Louis," Saito said. "Maybe later-"
Josette's eyes were wide as Louise took over Saito's role, and as she clapped in sheer thrill, she remained a dutiful listener until the very end.
"You are both so awesome!" Josette said, "I hope I can be like you one day!" she clasped both of her hands tightly as if praying, her eyes holding tears of delight in their corners. "Do you both adventure for the thrill of it? Or is there a lady you are trying to woo? Is it that perhaps you are already married? Oh! Were you banished because of forbidden love for a noble lady or-"
"N-Nothing of the sort!" Louise rambled out, crossing her arms in front of her. "Really! We just felt like it, and decided to start. Then everything else happened."
"So...you're adventurers for fun?" Josette asked, her brows furrowed and her expression puzzled. "But then-then there's no one waiting for you back home?" she asked next, a little bit of sadness creeping in her voice.
"I-It's not like that!" Saito exclaimed. "Look..." he sighed, "You have to understand it's not easy to say so," there were tears falling down Saito's eyes as he realized there was only one way out of the curious and innocent look on the girl's face. It was the only way, but even then, it hurt to say it, "Because there is a lot of prejudice-but the truth is that Louis and I...we are a couple."
"B-But you're both males," Josette said, looking from Louis to Saito. "How does that work?"
"That's-That's nothing a proper lady should know!" Louise snapped in a 'manly' voice, making Josette blink and wince at the shrillness of the voice. "Still! You have to keep it a secret. It's bad publicity, but-"
"So you had to escape in order to love each other!" Josette's eyes were suddenly sparkling once more as she grabbed one of Saito's and one of Louise's hands, uniting them with her own clasped over them. "That's just so beautiful! I am sure love will definitely triumph between you two!"
Saito's tears would have filled an ocean. He was never going to break free from this misunderstanding, was he?
"Josette!" Jeanette said from below the deck, only her head coming out. "Stop disturbing the two kind adventurers and get down here! Jacques' feeling better and we have to decide where to start looking for work!"
"Oh-Oh right!" Josette blinked as she let go of both of their hands, bowing primly as she waved them goodbye and hurried below deck.
"Louis-" Saito began, only for Louise to let go of his hand and sigh.
"There are a lot of people counting on us, Saito," Louise whispered. "We can't babysit a group of children-of orphan children-of orphan, noble bastards children-just because one of them has a sparkling 'please hug me now' look."
"Please?" Saito hazarded.
"Just as far as Londinium," Louise said firmly. "And anyway, it's just because we're headed in the same direction and a proud nun of Brimir would do that. Even if I'm not a nun," she added with her 'manly' voice. "So-only as long as we're looking for those things, and as long as they don't slow us down-" she gave him a soft glance. "You'd be horrible with children, spoiling them rotten."
Saito simply chuckled at that. "Well, I am too young to have children. Back where I'm from, you need to be at least twenty to be considered a proper adult."
"Strange," Louise said. "But it explains so, so much," Louise said, and then dropped down right by Saito's side, letting her back be held by Saito's shoulder. Holding a knee close to herself with both of her arms, she sighed.
Captain Morgan didn't move from the helm of the ship, simply whistling a catchy tune as the land of Albion drew closer and closer.
"Oh my," he remarked with a dry smile. "Just in time~" he said. A small group of drakes seemed to be flying nimbly down from Albion and towards the ship, "The welcoming committee."
It was a patrol of four Dragon Knights from Albion. Three were white and nimble, but one was instead crimson and slightly bulkier. "Three wind drakes and a fire one, standard practice then-"
It was only when they drew nearer that 'Captain' Morgan Bleu realized something.
The four dragons were devoid of knights.
This meant they were wild familiars.
This also meant the peaceful trip was about to turn very, very badly.
Dragonskyt
Ashen one, hearest thou my voice, still?
- Location
- Kiln of the First Flame
You know this is how the first BL fanclub will be formed right?
An European-style country it may be, it still has too much Japanese influence.
An European-style country it may be, it still has too much Japanese influence.
Probably should cut the word "familiars" here. Unless they were summoned and let loose and they aren't such. Could use the word "animals", "dragons" (although that would be a bit repetitive) or just omit it and say "they were wild."
Chapter Fifty-Nine
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Fifty-Nine
The ship rolled suddenly to the side, making Louise yelp as Saito held on to her. "Trouble ahead!" Captain Morgan yelled from the helm, "Feral drakes! Three wind, one fire!"
The ship wasn't a galleon, and at most resembled an old whaler. It had no cannons, and held itself aloft by whatever magic engine it possessed, but it wasn't a fast one, that much was sure. The trio of wind drakes were upon them in seconds, their speed enough and their talons so sharp they cut through the wooden mast within mere seconds, rupturing it and making it crash on the side.
"Hold on!" the Captain yelled, even as Saito held on to Louise's arm with one hand, and clutched on to the boat's guard with the other.
The ship that had begun to roll on one side suddenly swerved back in alignment, but the trio of white drakes on the ship showed their teeth and fierce claws, slamming against what they perceived to be the weakest and tastiest morsel. Unfortunately for them, with the bridge back to being flat, Saito was on his feet with the poleaxe in both of his hands.
"Oh look Louis! We went from three gryphons to three dragons!" Saito said with mock-cheer. "This is going to be a great day! I just know it!"
Louise didn't answer, busy as she was chanting a quick spell with her wand, the tiny sphere of pure white appearing on it within mere seconds. "I'm taking the one on the left!" she said next resolutely, rushing ahead as Saito did the same for the other two, swinging the poleaxe with enough strength against the side of the head of one of the drakes that the impact didn't just shatter the weapon, but also half of the dragon's face.
The creature fell down dead, much to its fellow's surprise.
"Myur?" the creature said in a soft murmur, before turning its sharp, hateful eyes on Saito, who had moved to his sword next. "MYUR!"
The drake rushed forth, its claws ripping at the surface of the ship, but just as its fangs were about to impact against Saito's shield, a resounding explosion made him slip, snapping an inch away from his intended target. Saito took that as the cue to sidestep the head and bring the sword down in a piercing thrust that went straight through the neck, hitting a vein and letting the blood spray out.
Yet it wasn't enough to kill the creature on the spot, who simply swiped with his claw in an arch at Saito's small frame, who would have jumped past it, if not for Louise giving her back to the attack, busy as she was trying to aim properly with the spell on the tip of her wand once more. Her drake was still standing, but had lost an eye and a quarter of its teeth. Thus, Saito had to hold his ground with his shield, entering a strength contest that he had no hope of winning, but which made him plant his sword on the ground and hold on for sheer life behind his shield.
In that moment, the fire drake landed on the front of the whaler and roared, opening its mouth with flames gathering within.
"Stop him!" Saito yelled, and as he did, from the deck below Josette emerged with a sphere of water easily the size...of Saito's head. The water struck the creature's snout, even the dragon's flames didn't as much as waved because of it. The water vapors, however, were a sickly green that didn't escape the boy's eyes.
Jacques emerged next, the large iron slab on his back clutched firmly with both hands. He jumped right in front of the dragon, and through magic, the iron slab began a giant battering hammer that slammed against the side of the creature's face, pulverizing and making it slip its hold.
When Jeanette emerged, Saito's dragon had turned to face him with both claws, the blood giving him a faint rosy color near its neck. A dagger flew through the air and hit Louise's dragon in the remaining eye, making the creature go blind as it screamed, before the tiny sphere of white exploded against it's already damaged head, splattering remains everywhere on the main deck.
The last wind dragon looked angrily as it swished its tail, before opening its wings and trying to jump off. He did not go far as Captain Morgan jumped on one of its wings with his rapier and sliced it neatly, the membrane shattering and bleeding. "Oh no, I'm bringing your carcasses up for reagents to repay the damages done to my ship!" the Captain said hotly, "En Garde, vile beast!"
In answer, the dragon pulled its body forward, jumping with all four of its legs upon the middle of the deck and making it crack, splinters of wood sailing everywhere.
It dug one claw through the bridge as Louise finished chanting for yet one more explosion, and even as Saito rushed for him, the once-familiar drake knew how to disable a flying ship from sheer experience. There was a resounding crack, and a blast of wind ripped asunder the very deck they were on.
Just as that happened, the explosion from Louise's wand tore apart the dragon's head, leaving nothing behind but a cauterized headless corpse.
Unfortunately, the damage had already been done.
"Saito!" Louise screamed as she was flung away, only for Jeanette to grab her arm at the last possible second, preventing her from falling down to her doom. Still, the boat was starting to capsize again.
"Louis!" Saito yelled in return, even as he clung on to a piece of rope from the ship that was losing altitude. Well, not all of the ship was, just most of it. The part that wasn't seemed to be a mass of pulsating rocks that was easily breaking through the already damaged bridge, and upon which Saito set his sights.
He didn't know how they worked, only that they had to go up rather than down, and he had to act fast.
He dropped his shield and sword, clutched on to the dagger, and ran up to the massive rock -the windstone engine- that kept rising in the air. With the rope, he made a quick jump over it and tied it as quickly as he could, dagger in his mouth. He didn't stop. He couldn't stop. He rushed to the other end of the boat just as the engine finally broke free from the wooden remains of the bridge.
His hand clutched on tightly to Louise's wrist, while Josette's staff grabbed his foot to hold on. Tightly holding on to the dagger in his mouth, Saito could taste his own blood as his teeth dug in the cold metal, while his limb pulled Louise up, his other one busy not being wrenched out of its socket by the combined effort of holding with his foot Josette and Louise's lithe frame.
With his partner firmly secured to the rope, he hoisted up Josette, just as the rest of the crew somehow were floating on to the rock by themselves.
"Levitate is a very useful spell when you are the captain of a flying ship," Captain Morgan Bleu said with a gasp of relief as he held on to the rope, his feet firmly planted on the windstones. "This is not how I planned to make the trip, by the way," he added. "I was thinking I could get you kids safely to Londinium and then be on my way to get pretty chicks at a nearby hovel!"
"Is that all you can think about, you perverted captain!?" Jeanette actually spoke shrilly, holding on for dear life. "Just-Just how are we supposed to get back down?!"
"Well, not my fault," the Captain said. "I hired you two to protect my ship!" he added, looking at Louise and Saito.
"Well, maybe if your ship had been a bit stronger-" Louise snarled back. "Saito, are you holding up all right?"
"I'm fine, Louis," Saito said, smiling even as he held on. "Will we capable of reaching land with this?" he asked.
The Captain smiled. "Depends. Anyone of you a Wind Mage?" at Jeanette's huffed nod, he smiled, "Great! Then we aren't going to crash and die horribly! Try to put a small dot spell inside the windstones closest to Mister Saito when I tell you to. It should make us move in the opposite direction, closer to the land-important thing is getting close enough and up enough that we can levitate down-cause otherwise, it's going to be a massive pain in the ass otherwise."
"Ah-but Mister Saito's not a mage," Josette said. "I'll-I'll help him down!" she said resolutely.
"Oi!" Louise said snappishly. "Why not me?"
"Mister Louis-you didn't cast Levitate when you were falling. Do you perhaps not know it?" Josette asked shyly. "I thought-"
"Well, I don't know it. Never bothered learning it. Never cared for it. I really like the ground!" Louise snarled in her 'manly' voice. "Still, I'd rather it was your brother -he's stronger and can probably carry more weight."
"Oh, I see-you don't need to fear! I won't come between your love! I mean-it's a beautiful thing to be jealous-"
"WHO. IS. JEALOUS." Louise roared, making the engine shake a bit.
"Louis! Calm down!" Saito yelled, holding on for dear life. "How long till we reach the top?"
Captain Morgan Bleu hummed, closing one eye and looking at the landmass up above. "I'd say...three hours at the current rate of ascension. Oh, and you all would do better to strap in. It's going to get pretty cold once we reach the clouds. Did you know they're made of water? Cold, cold, water?"
Nobody laughed.
Everyone simply did the wise thing and held on tighter to the rope.
The ship rolled suddenly to the side, making Louise yelp as Saito held on to her. "Trouble ahead!" Captain Morgan yelled from the helm, "Feral drakes! Three wind, one fire!"
The ship wasn't a galleon, and at most resembled an old whaler. It had no cannons, and held itself aloft by whatever magic engine it possessed, but it wasn't a fast one, that much was sure. The trio of wind drakes were upon them in seconds, their speed enough and their talons so sharp they cut through the wooden mast within mere seconds, rupturing it and making it crash on the side.
"Hold on!" the Captain yelled, even as Saito held on to Louise's arm with one hand, and clutched on to the boat's guard with the other.
The ship that had begun to roll on one side suddenly swerved back in alignment, but the trio of white drakes on the ship showed their teeth and fierce claws, slamming against what they perceived to be the weakest and tastiest morsel. Unfortunately for them, with the bridge back to being flat, Saito was on his feet with the poleaxe in both of his hands.
"Oh look Louis! We went from three gryphons to three dragons!" Saito said with mock-cheer. "This is going to be a great day! I just know it!"
Louise didn't answer, busy as she was chanting a quick spell with her wand, the tiny sphere of pure white appearing on it within mere seconds. "I'm taking the one on the left!" she said next resolutely, rushing ahead as Saito did the same for the other two, swinging the poleaxe with enough strength against the side of the head of one of the drakes that the impact didn't just shatter the weapon, but also half of the dragon's face.
The creature fell down dead, much to its fellow's surprise.
"Myur?" the creature said in a soft murmur, before turning its sharp, hateful eyes on Saito, who had moved to his sword next. "MYUR!"
The drake rushed forth, its claws ripping at the surface of the ship, but just as its fangs were about to impact against Saito's shield, a resounding explosion made him slip, snapping an inch away from his intended target. Saito took that as the cue to sidestep the head and bring the sword down in a piercing thrust that went straight through the neck, hitting a vein and letting the blood spray out.
Yet it wasn't enough to kill the creature on the spot, who simply swiped with his claw in an arch at Saito's small frame, who would have jumped past it, if not for Louise giving her back to the attack, busy as she was trying to aim properly with the spell on the tip of her wand once more. Her drake was still standing, but had lost an eye and a quarter of its teeth. Thus, Saito had to hold his ground with his shield, entering a strength contest that he had no hope of winning, but which made him plant his sword on the ground and hold on for sheer life behind his shield.
In that moment, the fire drake landed on the front of the whaler and roared, opening its mouth with flames gathering within.
"Stop him!" Saito yelled, and as he did, from the deck below Josette emerged with a sphere of water easily the size...of Saito's head. The water struck the creature's snout, even the dragon's flames didn't as much as waved because of it. The water vapors, however, were a sickly green that didn't escape the boy's eyes.
Jacques emerged next, the large iron slab on his back clutched firmly with both hands. He jumped right in front of the dragon, and through magic, the iron slab began a giant battering hammer that slammed against the side of the creature's face, pulverizing and making it slip its hold.
When Jeanette emerged, Saito's dragon had turned to face him with both claws, the blood giving him a faint rosy color near its neck. A dagger flew through the air and hit Louise's dragon in the remaining eye, making the creature go blind as it screamed, before the tiny sphere of white exploded against it's already damaged head, splattering remains everywhere on the main deck.
The last wind dragon looked angrily as it swished its tail, before opening its wings and trying to jump off. He did not go far as Captain Morgan jumped on one of its wings with his rapier and sliced it neatly, the membrane shattering and bleeding. "Oh no, I'm bringing your carcasses up for reagents to repay the damages done to my ship!" the Captain said hotly, "En Garde, vile beast!"
In answer, the dragon pulled its body forward, jumping with all four of its legs upon the middle of the deck and making it crack, splinters of wood sailing everywhere.
It dug one claw through the bridge as Louise finished chanting for yet one more explosion, and even as Saito rushed for him, the once-familiar drake knew how to disable a flying ship from sheer experience. There was a resounding crack, and a blast of wind ripped asunder the very deck they were on.
Just as that happened, the explosion from Louise's wand tore apart the dragon's head, leaving nothing behind but a cauterized headless corpse.
Unfortunately, the damage had already been done.
"Saito!" Louise screamed as she was flung away, only for Jeanette to grab her arm at the last possible second, preventing her from falling down to her doom. Still, the boat was starting to capsize again.
"Louis!" Saito yelled in return, even as he clung on to a piece of rope from the ship that was losing altitude. Well, not all of the ship was, just most of it. The part that wasn't seemed to be a mass of pulsating rocks that was easily breaking through the already damaged bridge, and upon which Saito set his sights.
He didn't know how they worked, only that they had to go up rather than down, and he had to act fast.
He dropped his shield and sword, clutched on to the dagger, and ran up to the massive rock -the windstone engine- that kept rising in the air. With the rope, he made a quick jump over it and tied it as quickly as he could, dagger in his mouth. He didn't stop. He couldn't stop. He rushed to the other end of the boat just as the engine finally broke free from the wooden remains of the bridge.
His hand clutched on tightly to Louise's wrist, while Josette's staff grabbed his foot to hold on. Tightly holding on to the dagger in his mouth, Saito could taste his own blood as his teeth dug in the cold metal, while his limb pulled Louise up, his other one busy not being wrenched out of its socket by the combined effort of holding with his foot Josette and Louise's lithe frame.
With his partner firmly secured to the rope, he hoisted up Josette, just as the rest of the crew somehow were floating on to the rock by themselves.
"Levitate is a very useful spell when you are the captain of a flying ship," Captain Morgan Bleu said with a gasp of relief as he held on to the rope, his feet firmly planted on the windstones. "This is not how I planned to make the trip, by the way," he added. "I was thinking I could get you kids safely to Londinium and then be on my way to get pretty chicks at a nearby hovel!"
"Is that all you can think about, you perverted captain!?" Jeanette actually spoke shrilly, holding on for dear life. "Just-Just how are we supposed to get back down?!"
"Well, not my fault," the Captain said. "I hired you two to protect my ship!" he added, looking at Louise and Saito.
"Well, maybe if your ship had been a bit stronger-" Louise snarled back. "Saito, are you holding up all right?"
"I'm fine, Louis," Saito said, smiling even as he held on. "Will we capable of reaching land with this?" he asked.
The Captain smiled. "Depends. Anyone of you a Wind Mage?" at Jeanette's huffed nod, he smiled, "Great! Then we aren't going to crash and die horribly! Try to put a small dot spell inside the windstones closest to Mister Saito when I tell you to. It should make us move in the opposite direction, closer to the land-important thing is getting close enough and up enough that we can levitate down-cause otherwise, it's going to be a massive pain in the ass otherwise."
"Ah-but Mister Saito's not a mage," Josette said. "I'll-I'll help him down!" she said resolutely.
"Oi!" Louise said snappishly. "Why not me?"
"Mister Louis-you didn't cast Levitate when you were falling. Do you perhaps not know it?" Josette asked shyly. "I thought-"
"Well, I don't know it. Never bothered learning it. Never cared for it. I really like the ground!" Louise snarled in her 'manly' voice. "Still, I'd rather it was your brother -he's stronger and can probably carry more weight."
"Oh, I see-you don't need to fear! I won't come between your love! I mean-it's a beautiful thing to be jealous-"
"WHO. IS. JEALOUS." Louise roared, making the engine shake a bit.
"Louis! Calm down!" Saito yelled, holding on for dear life. "How long till we reach the top?"
Captain Morgan Bleu hummed, closing one eye and looking at the landmass up above. "I'd say...three hours at the current rate of ascension. Oh, and you all would do better to strap in. It's going to get pretty cold once we reach the clouds. Did you know they're made of water? Cold, cold, water?"
Nobody laughed.
Everyone simply did the wise thing and held on tighter to the rope.
RazorSmile
ROB Used To Be A Knife Missile
I gotta say; every single one of those bolded and italicized last lines is hilarious.
Every single one of those last Bolded, italicized lines is a GREAT chapter ender.
Generalissimo
Generalissimo of SufficientVelocity
- Location
- Tropico, Tropico
I've never heard of a ZnT/FoZ story featuring Amethyst, Daphne, *and* Jeanette.
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That's a very cavalier man at losing his ship, although I suppose the windstone engine is probably the most valuable part of it.
e: Oh, I see, he's another one of those knights.
e: Oh, I see, he's another one of those knights.
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Chapter Sixty
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Sixty
Albion was a cold country.
Saito wasn't thinking it because of the cold shower he had suffered through, or the freezing winds that had proceeded to dry him -and probably give him pneumonia too. Albion was a cold country because the mists, the humidity, the cold winds in the air all made it feel like one of the coldest places on which he had ever set his feet on.
It wasn't even the worst part of it, the cold. Albion was a cold country, but it was also a dead country. They had ended up dropping down near a border of sorts, upon loose rocks that had crumbled under their feet as they made their way further away from the edge and thus to stabler ground.
"This is a horrible way to start our adventuring," Josette said with a sniffle, shaking like a leaf and with both hands around her arms. "It's cold-" she whimpered, a sneeze interrupting her.
"Even the dead wood is wet," Louise said in disbelief, grabbing a stick from the ground and twisting it, letting droplets of water fall from it. "Well, only one way to go about it." She pulled her swordwand out and began to chant amidst the dreary and barren moor. A few shining spheres of light began to spread across the spots where Louise's swordwand passed, soon becoming a line of light. Then the light expanded, encapsulating them all.
It was like moving through a hot air maelstrom, and when it stopped, everyone was dry. Louise instead simply cheered. "There, I knew I could get the right strength to the spell-"
"Louis," Saito hazarded, "You practiced this before, right?"
"Well," Louise looked sideways and coughed lightly, her hair all standing up in an afro. She wasn't the only one though. Everyone else had pretty much the same hairstyle, but at least their clothes were dry. "I just applied the usual 'Vaporize' spell, only, I tried to make it weaker."
Saito laughed nervously. "Vaporize, uh-that's how you call that explosion thing that can make orcs headless?"
"Well, I could call it 'Wham-Wham, Head-Away!' but I think 'Vaporize' sounds better, don't you think?" Louise remarked, inclining her head to the side. "I might not know Levitate, but I sure as hell know my way around turning enemies into chunky bits!" she held her chest up in pride, her voice rough and 'manly'.
"So we could have ended up blown to bits?" Jeanette asked, her voice kind of wavering at the thought.
"But we didn't, because Mister Louis is a strong and great adventurer!" Josette said with stars in her eyes. "And big brother Jacques was so cool against that fire dragon, wasn't he?" she continued, looking up at Jacques who blushed and scratched the back of his head, definitely embarrassed by the praise.
"We need to find some form of roof over our heads," Louise said, "You don't want to sleep outside during the night," she added, looking up at the dimming light. "Light's fading pretty fast too."
"We are higher than the rest of the continent," Captain Morgan said. "Light comes later, and goes away sooner, and it's generally colder. Oh, and windy, there's a lot of wind, humidity, rain...well, you know, the usual Albion weather," he chuckled. "You either love it or hate it, and normally everyone hates it. 'Country forsaken by Brimir' after all, isn't just a fancy nickname."
He began to trudge through the moor's soft mud. "Can't do much for the ship business I guess, but again, I was planning on making it my last trip."
"Do you know where you're going at least?" Saito asked.
"Nope!" Captain Morgan said, "But my trustworthy compass shall tell me where the North is!" as he spoke, he held his compass up for everyone to see. He smiled as he looked back down at it, and frowned. "And it's going in circles. Great. Right. Well-anyone has a better idea?"
"Smoke trails," Jeanette said, turning her eyes towards a sparse amount of trees beyond which smoke could be seen. "A lot of smoke trails. Maybe we haven't ended so far from Londinium after all?"
Saito's bad feeling intensified the closer they reached the dreadfully dead woods. "The trees have been burnt," he said softly. "It wasn't wildfire," he added as the corpse of a fire dragon could be found slammed through at least a dozen of charred trunks.
"The battle must have happened recently," Jacques said, his hand on the belly of the dead beast. "It's still warm."
"Well, this explains the wild familiars," Captain Morgan said with a sigh, wiping the drops of humidity off from his forehead. "Their masters were killed recently, so they just went wild against everything near them."
Josette looked around slightly afraid, but then moved up closer to Saito, and grabbed hold of the edge of his left sleeve with her index and thumb. "Uhm-" she whispered, "I'm sorry, but-are there going to be scary things ahead?"
"Don't worry about it," Saito said with a smile and a thumb-up, "If there are, I will protect you all."
"Like you protected the ship, Saito?" Louise remarked with a dry chuckle. "Keep on the lookout. There might be specters-or...do you remember what type of creatures ate the dead?"
"Three-Eyed Vultures?" Saito hazarded, only to receive a shake from Louise's head. "You're the one who read the book on ingredients for fun. I simply carried it around!"
"Reading a few pages wouldn't have hurt!" Louise snapped as she cracked a branch under her foot, soon reaching past the forest. "Oh," she said softly. "Hey, Saito...was there anything about the animated corpses?"
Saito furrowed his brows and as he stepped right by Louise's side, his breath was taken away.
Moaning, gurgling masses of dead were shambling about with their arms held high, their bodies reduced to rotten flesh that still moved on somehow.
"Well-at least they're slow," Saito said in a whisper, the smell of rot hitting his nose like a hammer.
Upon a dreary dead horse, a skeletal remain of what had once been a scorched man simply turned its empty, lifeless eyes upon them and then pointed a half broken lance towards the assembled group by the hill. The shambling corpses stopped shambling.
They began to run like crazed, blood-thirsty monsters.
"Those aren't just animated corpses!" Louise yelled, "They're Undead!"
"Isn't that the definition of Undead? An animated corpse!?" Saito yelled back, his bow in hand as he threw a lone arrow at the closest of the corpses, who didn't even bother with it, keeping itself on course.
"Of course not," Louise snapped back, swishing her wand forward as thin beads of energy detonated ahead of them, vaporizing the Undead on the spot. "Undead are the product of advanced Water Magic! An animate corpse shambles about, but an Undead can fight just as well as the living - and you need to use a strong Cure Spell on one of them..." she took a deep breath, "Or vaporize them into nothingness, I guess."
"I-I know the Cure Spell!" Josette said, clutching on to her staff. "If I may be of help to you-"
The undead horseman had reached upon them in a flash, but as Jacques' giant hammer of iron slammed him away, Saito whistled in appreciation. "Hey-can you do anything for me?" he asked, holding his dagger up.
"Yes," Jacques answered with a curt nod, touching the dagger as part of his iron hammer diminished, making Saito's dagger a large sword. "Can you handle it?"
As the sword ended up being sharp on both sides, Saito smiled as the runes on his left hand activated to their full strength. "Course I can, hey partner! What's the plan!?"
Louise huffed, tapping her foot on the ground as she took in the advancing army. "Well, why not? Here's what we're going to do!" she pointed at Josette, "You! Make a Cure spell, while you, Captain Morgan-"
"Oh, call me Bleu, it's shorter and more to the point," he winked. "I'm a Line Water-Wind, if that can help-"
"It can! No, it's great!" Louise nodded. "Help her with water. This is a story that my m-master taught me! Water transmits the Cure faster, and it's effective against the Undead-"
Saito yelled a battle cry rushing down with Jacques by his side, both warriors striking at their foes with enough strength to send them flying back. They clapped hands once, and then smiled as the undead that drew near ended up receiving blows after blows that reduced them to paste or to ribbons.
"Create water, insert Cure, throw Cure with Wind," Jeanette nodded. "Got it. What about you?"
"I need to chant," Louise said firmly, holding her swordwand tightly. "I need to chant a very, very big spell."
Slamming both of her feet on the soft dirt, she hoisted her swordwand right in front of her. She took a deep breath, and then closed her eyes. It wasn't that difficult. She didn't need to memorize the words for her spells. They just came to her from deep within. When she allowed the chant to go on, she could feel the power thrumming beneath it.
It was such great power, brimming like the thundering clouds, ready to unleash a thunderstorm, that she feared if she didn't keep it check, it might just kill the whole world. As it was though, perhaps it was time to see just how long the chant that her soul chanted was, and how deep and far the wells of her Willpower could reach.
Meanwhile, as the chant kept going, Saito's body twisted as he slammed the greatsword through the ribcage of a once soldier who didn't as much as shake. Thankfully, the blow was strong enough to cleave it in half. The lower half didn't stop advancing, and neither did the upper one.
He didn't need to be the one to deliver the finishing blow, however.
"Jacques!" he snapped, jumping on the back of the giant and past him, swinging his blade where new undead were brimming by the score. It seemed as if somebody had grabbed a whole battlefield worthy of dead and dropped them right on their path. The horses were the most dangerous, because they didn't stop unless their legs were chopped off, and even then, their massive mouths could still hurt.
A limbless horse's mouth managed to grip onto the armguard of Saito, making the boy snarl in pain as he sliced the lower mandible cleanly off to free the limb, blood dripping down from the wounded flesh.
"Undeath doesn't transmit through bites, I hope!"
"I hope not, Mister Saito," Jacques said with a rumbling, polite, but terrifyingly tired voice as he fell down on one knee, his body badly mangled by bites and seeping blood all over. Just as an undead warrior seemed keen to slam its sword through Jacques' body, Saito's greatsword easily deflected the blow on the ground, before a kick made the creature push its weight back, if slightly. The limb that held the blade popped free, but didn't let go of the sword until Saito's boot crushed the fingers off it.
A shower of water struck them from behind, making Saito gasp as tiredness and soreness began to disappear, accompanied by Jacques' deep breathing as he stood back up, the wounds closing up with sizzling mist.
"This is Josette's Cure spell," Jacques said, hoisting his hammer up. "And now-" the 'water hose' ended up slamming in the Undead closer to them, which soon toppled over, dead.
"Well," Saito remarked with a small smile. "This evens the odds a bit."
The flapping of wings as undead drakes began to lift off from the end of the battlefield made the boy groan.
Why had he opened his damn mouth?
Why had he opened it!?
Albion was a cold country.
Saito wasn't thinking it because of the cold shower he had suffered through, or the freezing winds that had proceeded to dry him -and probably give him pneumonia too. Albion was a cold country because the mists, the humidity, the cold winds in the air all made it feel like one of the coldest places on which he had ever set his feet on.
It wasn't even the worst part of it, the cold. Albion was a cold country, but it was also a dead country. They had ended up dropping down near a border of sorts, upon loose rocks that had crumbled under their feet as they made their way further away from the edge and thus to stabler ground.
"This is a horrible way to start our adventuring," Josette said with a sniffle, shaking like a leaf and with both hands around her arms. "It's cold-" she whimpered, a sneeze interrupting her.
"Even the dead wood is wet," Louise said in disbelief, grabbing a stick from the ground and twisting it, letting droplets of water fall from it. "Well, only one way to go about it." She pulled her swordwand out and began to chant amidst the dreary and barren moor. A few shining spheres of light began to spread across the spots where Louise's swordwand passed, soon becoming a line of light. Then the light expanded, encapsulating them all.
It was like moving through a hot air maelstrom, and when it stopped, everyone was dry. Louise instead simply cheered. "There, I knew I could get the right strength to the spell-"
"Louis," Saito hazarded, "You practiced this before, right?"
"Well," Louise looked sideways and coughed lightly, her hair all standing up in an afro. She wasn't the only one though. Everyone else had pretty much the same hairstyle, but at least their clothes were dry. "I just applied the usual 'Vaporize' spell, only, I tried to make it weaker."
Saito laughed nervously. "Vaporize, uh-that's how you call that explosion thing that can make orcs headless?"
"Well, I could call it 'Wham-Wham, Head-Away!' but I think 'Vaporize' sounds better, don't you think?" Louise remarked, inclining her head to the side. "I might not know Levitate, but I sure as hell know my way around turning enemies into chunky bits!" she held her chest up in pride, her voice rough and 'manly'.
"So we could have ended up blown to bits?" Jeanette asked, her voice kind of wavering at the thought.
"But we didn't, because Mister Louis is a strong and great adventurer!" Josette said with stars in her eyes. "And big brother Jacques was so cool against that fire dragon, wasn't he?" she continued, looking up at Jacques who blushed and scratched the back of his head, definitely embarrassed by the praise.
"We need to find some form of roof over our heads," Louise said, "You don't want to sleep outside during the night," she added, looking up at the dimming light. "Light's fading pretty fast too."
"We are higher than the rest of the continent," Captain Morgan said. "Light comes later, and goes away sooner, and it's generally colder. Oh, and windy, there's a lot of wind, humidity, rain...well, you know, the usual Albion weather," he chuckled. "You either love it or hate it, and normally everyone hates it. 'Country forsaken by Brimir' after all, isn't just a fancy nickname."
He began to trudge through the moor's soft mud. "Can't do much for the ship business I guess, but again, I was planning on making it my last trip."
"Do you know where you're going at least?" Saito asked.
"Nope!" Captain Morgan said, "But my trustworthy compass shall tell me where the North is!" as he spoke, he held his compass up for everyone to see. He smiled as he looked back down at it, and frowned. "And it's going in circles. Great. Right. Well-anyone has a better idea?"
"Smoke trails," Jeanette said, turning her eyes towards a sparse amount of trees beyond which smoke could be seen. "A lot of smoke trails. Maybe we haven't ended so far from Londinium after all?"
Saito's bad feeling intensified the closer they reached the dreadfully dead woods. "The trees have been burnt," he said softly. "It wasn't wildfire," he added as the corpse of a fire dragon could be found slammed through at least a dozen of charred trunks.
"The battle must have happened recently," Jacques said, his hand on the belly of the dead beast. "It's still warm."
"Well, this explains the wild familiars," Captain Morgan said with a sigh, wiping the drops of humidity off from his forehead. "Their masters were killed recently, so they just went wild against everything near them."
Josette looked around slightly afraid, but then moved up closer to Saito, and grabbed hold of the edge of his left sleeve with her index and thumb. "Uhm-" she whispered, "I'm sorry, but-are there going to be scary things ahead?"
"Don't worry about it," Saito said with a smile and a thumb-up, "If there are, I will protect you all."
"Like you protected the ship, Saito?" Louise remarked with a dry chuckle. "Keep on the lookout. There might be specters-or...do you remember what type of creatures ate the dead?"
"Three-Eyed Vultures?" Saito hazarded, only to receive a shake from Louise's head. "You're the one who read the book on ingredients for fun. I simply carried it around!"
"Reading a few pages wouldn't have hurt!" Louise snapped as she cracked a branch under her foot, soon reaching past the forest. "Oh," she said softly. "Hey, Saito...was there anything about the animated corpses?"
Saito furrowed his brows and as he stepped right by Louise's side, his breath was taken away.
Moaning, gurgling masses of dead were shambling about with their arms held high, their bodies reduced to rotten flesh that still moved on somehow.
"Well-at least they're slow," Saito said in a whisper, the smell of rot hitting his nose like a hammer.
Upon a dreary dead horse, a skeletal remain of what had once been a scorched man simply turned its empty, lifeless eyes upon them and then pointed a half broken lance towards the assembled group by the hill. The shambling corpses stopped shambling.
They began to run like crazed, blood-thirsty monsters.
"Those aren't just animated corpses!" Louise yelled, "They're Undead!"
"Isn't that the definition of Undead? An animated corpse!?" Saito yelled back, his bow in hand as he threw a lone arrow at the closest of the corpses, who didn't even bother with it, keeping itself on course.
"Of course not," Louise snapped back, swishing her wand forward as thin beads of energy detonated ahead of them, vaporizing the Undead on the spot. "Undead are the product of advanced Water Magic! An animate corpse shambles about, but an Undead can fight just as well as the living - and you need to use a strong Cure Spell on one of them..." she took a deep breath, "Or vaporize them into nothingness, I guess."
"I-I know the Cure Spell!" Josette said, clutching on to her staff. "If I may be of help to you-"
The undead horseman had reached upon them in a flash, but as Jacques' giant hammer of iron slammed him away, Saito whistled in appreciation. "Hey-can you do anything for me?" he asked, holding his dagger up.
"Yes," Jacques answered with a curt nod, touching the dagger as part of his iron hammer diminished, making Saito's dagger a large sword. "Can you handle it?"
As the sword ended up being sharp on both sides, Saito smiled as the runes on his left hand activated to their full strength. "Course I can, hey partner! What's the plan!?"
Louise huffed, tapping her foot on the ground as she took in the advancing army. "Well, why not? Here's what we're going to do!" she pointed at Josette, "You! Make a Cure spell, while you, Captain Morgan-"
"Oh, call me Bleu, it's shorter and more to the point," he winked. "I'm a Line Water-Wind, if that can help-"
"It can! No, it's great!" Louise nodded. "Help her with water. This is a story that my m-master taught me! Water transmits the Cure faster, and it's effective against the Undead-"
Saito yelled a battle cry rushing down with Jacques by his side, both warriors striking at their foes with enough strength to send them flying back. They clapped hands once, and then smiled as the undead that drew near ended up receiving blows after blows that reduced them to paste or to ribbons.
"Create water, insert Cure, throw Cure with Wind," Jeanette nodded. "Got it. What about you?"
"I need to chant," Louise said firmly, holding her swordwand tightly. "I need to chant a very, very big spell."
Slamming both of her feet on the soft dirt, she hoisted her swordwand right in front of her. She took a deep breath, and then closed her eyes. It wasn't that difficult. She didn't need to memorize the words for her spells. They just came to her from deep within. When she allowed the chant to go on, she could feel the power thrumming beneath it.
It was such great power, brimming like the thundering clouds, ready to unleash a thunderstorm, that she feared if she didn't keep it check, it might just kill the whole world. As it was though, perhaps it was time to see just how long the chant that her soul chanted was, and how deep and far the wells of her Willpower could reach.
Meanwhile, as the chant kept going, Saito's body twisted as he slammed the greatsword through the ribcage of a once soldier who didn't as much as shake. Thankfully, the blow was strong enough to cleave it in half. The lower half didn't stop advancing, and neither did the upper one.
He didn't need to be the one to deliver the finishing blow, however.
"Jacques!" he snapped, jumping on the back of the giant and past him, swinging his blade where new undead were brimming by the score. It seemed as if somebody had grabbed a whole battlefield worthy of dead and dropped them right on their path. The horses were the most dangerous, because they didn't stop unless their legs were chopped off, and even then, their massive mouths could still hurt.
A limbless horse's mouth managed to grip onto the armguard of Saito, making the boy snarl in pain as he sliced the lower mandible cleanly off to free the limb, blood dripping down from the wounded flesh.
"Undeath doesn't transmit through bites, I hope!"
"I hope not, Mister Saito," Jacques said with a rumbling, polite, but terrifyingly tired voice as he fell down on one knee, his body badly mangled by bites and seeping blood all over. Just as an undead warrior seemed keen to slam its sword through Jacques' body, Saito's greatsword easily deflected the blow on the ground, before a kick made the creature push its weight back, if slightly. The limb that held the blade popped free, but didn't let go of the sword until Saito's boot crushed the fingers off it.
A shower of water struck them from behind, making Saito gasp as tiredness and soreness began to disappear, accompanied by Jacques' deep breathing as he stood back up, the wounds closing up with sizzling mist.
"This is Josette's Cure spell," Jacques said, hoisting his hammer up. "And now-" the 'water hose' ended up slamming in the Undead closer to them, which soon toppled over, dead.
"Well," Saito remarked with a small smile. "This evens the odds a bit."
The flapping of wings as undead drakes began to lift off from the end of the battlefield made the boy groan.
Why had he opened his damn mouth?
Why had he opened it!?
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Protodermis
Hope is an ugly feeling
- Location
- Dirac Sea
Gonna be honest, kinda meh about the running gag about Louise and Saito being gay. I mean... didn't Louise pretend to be a guy so everyone would stop thinking she and Saito are a couple? But everyone still thinks they're a couple... so what's the point?
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
To prevent Saito from getting lucky with girls.
Since Saito's leaving, better to avoid any heart-breaks.
