I sweated as I continued to shoot arrows at the dummy, always hitting a ring away from the bull's eye. Castanea slapped my back again, causing me to collapse. "Aim better! I know you're better than that!" she yelled at me, I weakly got up. "Please... you always... the people of Irinid... would never... do that..." I said, each pause I took in a breath. My mom stood there, dumbfounded. "What? Where did you learn that?" she demanded, that glaring look in her eyes. I was frightened, "I just know." I simply replied, straightening myself. Mom still had that glaring look in her eyes, "You shall be cursed because you have knowledge of the Irinid." she declared, her anger making me shrink more and more, "Since you remember everything, you will have the disease that makes our people forget. But, the conditions are worse. You shall have comas with memory wipes, now continue on with your training."
She walked away, and then soon everything blacked out. I was in a dark world of despair, I wanted to be where there was light. "Mommy!" I shrieked in the void of nothing, "Mommy, please help me! Help me! Mommy!!" There was no reply to my plead of panic, I curled myself up into a ball and sobbed. This isn't where I wanted to be, I wanted to be with Atrata who was the town's healer. She was like me, misunderstood and alone. And I wanted to be with Hagel, the adventerous banker who always searched for clues of the Irinid. He was like me too, I was an explorer who wanted to venture out into the unknown. I wanted to be with Lepus, Meles, even Granites! I wanted to be anywhere but here, I wanted to be free.
The archers returned fire and I fleed from the battle scene and hid behind a rock, as I heard the arrows hitting the rock and some flying over the rock but missed, I tried to think of a plan. I need to do something else, they're too fast... think... think! That's it! I said to myself and leapt into the air and clapped my hands together, as soon as the archers saw this, they stopped firing and ran behind the trees of the forest.
"Fire techique: Art of the doppelgangers!" I shouted and I placed my spread hands beside me and fire started leaking out of my hands and started molding into a copy of myself and I clapped my hands again and the doppelgangers did the same.
"Fire techique: Dance of the fire spirit!" We all shouted and fire emerged from our hands and flew towards the trees where the archers were hidding and the trees that they were hiding behind, were caught in the flames and the archers were now exposed. They screamed and ran away and I smiled and walked towards the forest to investigate the ogres...
Shaosu's mouth were wide opened in shock.
"Shaosu, are you alright?" Nao asked,
"Yeah, isn't fire like the hardest element to master?" Shaosu asked her,
"Yeah, well the village train the young ones really hard, hey, you're a master of the lightning element!" Nao said...
Basil at age 11.
I was sitting in the library when Violet loudly burst in and dragged me outside, I apologized to the people who were still reading. When she finally stopped dragging me, she placed me in front of a pole.
"Violet, why did you drag me to a training pole?" I asked.
"Because you can't always rely on your magic, sometimes you need some good old melee experience," she said, "Now where's that sword I gave you?"
I pulled it out and she said, "Good, now practice hitting that pole, 1000 times."
What???? I thought.
"What!!" I said.
"You heard me, 1000 times, on the double," she clapped her hands and started to chase me down with a mace until I started to hit the pole.
At around 500, a tall lady with silver hair, dressed in armor, and amber eyes walked up and asked Violet what was happening.
"Oh, Ms. Aranwen, I hope you didn't mind, I was just teaching my friend here the basics," Violet said.
Ah, the combat teacher, Violet often spoke about her.
"No problem, I can see that he doesn't use the sword much," said Aranwen, "Hm, boy, have you ever had official combat training?"
"Mr. Trefor taught me a bit, but other than that, not much," I said.
"I see, this explains your stance," she forced me to turn sideways and said, "Boy, try to keep your body shown as least as possible. As in do not show your full self to the opponent, less openings, always try to keep your body behind your sword, keep your head down and knees bent, don't let your free arm fly off, try to keep it around your waist, and finally, keep a good stance, or risk being knocked down."
She adjusted my position and asked, "Are you ambidextrous?"
"Not particularly, but I do try to even out the tasks," I said.
"Ah, then try with two swords," she said.
This went on for a while, then after Ms. Aranwen left, Violet once again told me to do 1000 strokes, per sword.
I creapt in the forest and soon enough, I found an ogre and drew a sketch of its pink blubber and its small limbs and head and readied my bow and shot at the ogre, the arrow flew in a beautiful arch, before hitting the ogre in the chest and it turned towards me and I made a mental note, note to self: Arrows don't have much effect on ogres. I unstringed my bow and clapped my hands together,
"Fire techique: Fire bombs!" I shouted and the huge fireball, exploded on contact of the ogre's chest and when the smoke disappeared it seemed to only have a few minor burns and I cursed and ran back to the guild's HQ...
Basil age 12.
I was hiding, why I was hiding you may ask? Well it was because Violet had a crush on someone. And when she has a crush, she gets into a complicated crazy love plan that usually involves me. Currently, her target of affection was the local girl magnet, Arron. So she obviously has to step it up.
"BASIL!!" screamed Violet.
Damn, she found me.
After dragging me out of the barrel, she told me her plan, "Ok, here's what you're gonna do, you're going to dress up as a mugger, then you are going to 'mug' me, then Arron happens to walk by, notices me being attacked, and he steps in to save me, got it?"
"Yeah, but are you in any way concerned how I will-"
"Ok, let's go."
-----
So we got into position, as rehearsed, and the instant Arron walked by, she started screaming, "HELP, HELP!! THIEF!! HELP ME PLEASE!!"
Arron noticed the commotion, saw me with a dagger trying to 'mug' Violet, and he pulled out his club. This was the part where I started to run away. After I got away, barely, I saw Violet and Arron meeting up. Violet was acting all awed and amazed by Arron, who was showing off, and she was acting like an ideal damsel in distress, I never knew how good she was at acting. Afterwards, Arron started to join us in our daily dungeon runs once and a while.
Shaosu, age 13
Shaosu and Ceez sat on the watchtower in Emain Macha, eating ice-cream and sitting on the ledge. They regularly did this after missions and there was the rare occasion that Nao would join them. "Today makes 358..." Shaosu stated. Ceez looked at him, "What does that mean?" he asked. "Don't you remember? It's been that many days since we joined Chainfire," Shaosu said. "Oh, so you've memorized the days haven't you?" Ceez asked with a smirk on his face. "Yeah..." Shaosu muttered. There was silence between the two until Ceez said, "Hey, bet'cha you don't know why the sun sets red," he said.
"Hmm?" Shaous looked at his brother. "You see, light is made of lots of different colors, and of all them, red is the one that travels slowest," he said. "Like i asked know-it-all"Shaosu said and playfully hit his brother' shoulder. The two brothers then laughed from this. A few minutes passed and Ceez was leaning on the floor of the watchtower while Shaosu was still sitting. "Man, where is she today? She said she'd come," Shaosu said and turned around, half-expecting Nao to show up since he had asked her to join them if she was ever free. "She is a Soul Stream Guardian bro" Ceez said. "Still..." Shaosu began when there was a flash and Nao appeared.
"sorry i'm late, things got busy for me in the Soul stream," Nao said. "No problem, sit," Shaosu said and scooched over to let Nao sit next to him, which she did. "Thankfully we managed to get you one of these before they sold out, it's a little melted but it's the least we could do," Ceez said and handed her an ice cream that began to melt. Nao took it and began eating it quickly to avoid it spilling on her dress. "So, anything new?" she asked the brothers. "Nothing important, just some Formors we had to get rid of in Coil Dungeon," Shaosu said. "'nothing important'? You kept getting K.O'd by a Lightning Sprite!" Ceez said. Shaosu growled and got up and walked to his brother, "I told you not to mention that!" he yelled and the brothers began to fight. Nao couldn't help but smile a bit at the two brothers fighting each other. 'two years and he hasn't changed...' Nao thought.
I returned to the Second Chance guild and was immediately tugged to one of the dungeons and continuously whipped, apparently it was because I was late.
"This will teach you to be late!" The whipper shouted at me and cracked the whip on me,
"The people from the Archer's guild were in my way! There were three of them!!!" I yelled back and my body started burning and let it pin him down and I burnt the rope off and decided that I needed to leave this guild, I burnt my guild robe and made a run for the door.
Upon arrival of the door, I met two guards which I pinned down easily with my flames and I ran towards the woods and dodging the arrows that the archers were firing at me. I kept running until the guild leader suddenly appeared in front of me and ordered the archers to stop firing, I clenched my fists and charged at him, I leapt above him but he grabbed onto my leg, not even worried about my flames and threw me back down. I tried to get up but was hit with the butt of his sword and gasped as I grabbed my stomach.
"You can't run away, you were just held up? I understand, you could have just told me earlier." The leader said but I refused to listen to him, since he was the one who threw me in that place with that whipman and I drew my sword and covered it in flames.
"Ahh, the fire blade techique, I haven't seen it before, what an honor to finally see it, but you won't defeat me with pure anger and fire blades." He said and raised his own sword and charged at me.
A couple of minutes into the battle and I was already beaten to my knees, he's too fast, yet he wasn't affected by my flames. I dispersed my flames and sheathed my sword and bowed in defeat and followed him back to the HQ...
Basil age 14
"Violet, this must be one of the most stupidest things you have ever thought of, and there has been a lot of those moments," I said.
"I have to agree with Basil on this, going to that dungeon seems kind of foolish," said Arron.
"And we only have 4 people," said a young girl with blue eyes and silver hair. She was new, her name was Roda.
"Ah, it will be fine, Pecca doesn't seem that bad," Violet said, grinning from ear to ear. We were so dead.
"But it takes a giant group of people to tackle that dungeon, going in with 4 people is suicide," I said, desperate to make my point.
"And I said it would be fine, right?" she turned her head towards everyone else. Roda and Arron nodded.
"That was what you said about that one time in Barri," I muttered.
She came in real close and said, "I thought we agreed to never discuss Barri again, ever."
--------------
So here's what happened, we were all sitting around Emain when a group of warriors came by and said that Pecca was a piece of cake. Which gave Violet the idea of going in. Next birthday I'm giving her a pair of earplugs.
"I'm really sorry about this," I said to Roda, "She gets like this, a lot, I'll apply first aid and revive you with phoenix feathers when you need it ok."
"Ok," Roda said, "I'm just glad you helped me out back there with the flowers."
"No problem," I said.
"Ah, it'll be fine Basil," said Arron proudly, "I mean, what can go wrong."
------------
So, one room in, we already came close to dying, by the end of the floor, we ran out of supplies to keep us from dying.
"Violet!!" I said, "We are going to be killed if we go in any further, let's just turn back and-"
"Basil, we are going in, no questions asked," she spoke back.
"But we have no more potions, no more bandages, we just used up the last of our fire wood, and-"
"Basil, those warriors said it was easy, and if they said they can do this easily, what is stopping us?"
"I just said we were running out, no we ran out of supplies."
It was like talking to a brick wall, but eventually, I wore her down enough to have everyone go back. Sometimes she could be so stubborn.
------
Afterwords, everyone left towards there house, saying that we'd meet in front of Rabbie tomorrow. Me and Violet were walking towards our houses, there was silence for most of the walk before she said, "I'm sorry, Basil."
"It's fine," I said.
"It's just that when I see those smug faces, I want to have one of those faces too," she said.
"I know," I said.
"...So, we still friends?" she asked, almost hesitantly.
"Yeah, always," I said, "So, how's Arron?"
"Ah, he's a good guy, just my type too, you know, you should get a girlfriend Basil, I mean, the only kiss you ever got was from that one elf girl a long time ago," she said.
"Well, I don't see that happening, ever."
I had finally gotten away from the Second Chance guild, after numerous attempts, at the age of 20, I've managed to get away from the hell hole and decided to search for a new teacher and I wrote a notice and attactched it to a board and pulled another notice down and I read it to myself.
The notice was yellow and the words were colourfully coloured with many bright colours and it was drawn on with a lot of doodles but I ignored the doodles and read the description.
"The one who is able to defeat the black wizard will be a hero to me and will be rewarded with 10,000 gold coins." As soon as I read out the reward, my eyes widened and I pocketed the notice...
Basil at 13, yeah, have another story for that time while I think of a senario for how he met everyone else.
Me, Violet, and Arron were walking around Dunbarton, being bored out of our minds.
"BASIL!!! Think of something to do," Violet said, moaning.
"Why do I have to think of something, why can't Arron think of something," I spoke back.
"Ah, I can't come up with anything, wait, why don't we...No, that won't work," he said in reply.
"AHHHH!!!! THIS IS KILLING ME!! I WISH SOMETHING WOULD HAPPEN!!!" Violet screamed.
Just then, a girl with silver hair and blue eyes ran past us, with a guy chasing her yelling, "THEIF!! SOMEONE STOP HER!!"
"Wow, speak of the devil," I said.
"After her men!!" cried Violet.
After a long winded chase, we finally cornered the girl. She looked to be about our age, wearing a sort of dress that looked like it was made of flower petals. She looked scared out of her mind.
"Now, please, give back what you stole," I said calmly, "Don't worry, we won't hurt you." I edged my hand towards her.
Then she bit me, ow. But this put me in a good spot to hold her down.
"Now please, let go of the thing you stole, and also stop trying to bite my hand off please," I said.
She bit harder, but she did let go of the object she was carrying, it was a loaf of bread.
"Ah, thank you," said the guy, "I thought she was going to pay for it, but she ran instead, hm, she took a bite out of it, might as well give it to her."
The man handed the bread back to the girl, who ate the loaf instantly. She also kept biting my hand.
"Ok, now girl, let go of Basil's hand right now, or else," said Violet, spinning her sword around hypnotically.
The girl didn't seem to hear Violet and kept on biting.
"HEY, ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME!!" she screamed.
The girl just wouldn't let go.
"Um, little girl, are you still hungry?" I asked.
She looked at me, gave a brief nod, then resumed biting.
"Hey Arron, do you still have that cheese wedge on you?" I asked.
"Yeah, want it?" he inquired back.
"Yeah," I answered.
He gave me the wedge, which I promptly waved in front of the girl, she immediately stopped biting my hand, and started to eat the cheese. After she was done, she walked over to a bench and sat down.
"Hm," said Violet.
"What?" I asked.
Violet walked over to the girl, and asked if she had a home. The girl shook her head. Violet asked if she had a family, she shook her head. Violet then asked if she had any friends, the girl once again shook her head.
"Well, from now on, we'll be your friends, we'll also be your family, which means no stealing food anymore since we're gonna buy it for you, got it?" Violet said.
The girl nodded her head.
"Well, the first step to friendship would be introductions, I'm Violet, the big guy there is Arron, and the little, pale, weak, submissive, frail-"
"Get on with it!!" I said.
"boy next to him is called Basil, and I'm Violet. So, what's your name?"
"I don't have one," said the girl.
"Hm, that's a problem, hey Basil, what should we call her?" Violet asked.
"I don't know, why are you asking me?" I asked.
"Because that's what you're here for, now give her a name," Violet commanded.
"Uh, let me see," I stared at the sky, trying to come up with something, then I thought, "Roda, Roda Tera Luna, how's that?"
"It's horrible, but it'll do," said Violet.
The girl turned to me and asked, "Roda, is that my name now?"
"If you want," I replied.
The girl smiled and said, "Roda Tera Luna, I like it."
I was eating a boiled egg I had boiled on the fire when I saw an owl dropped a scroll by me and I stopped eating the egg and read the scroll.
Dear TC
I, Ronal, am willing to take you up as my student in the art of the fire magic and advanced fire magic.
If you would meet me in Bangor within five days, I'll be glad to take you as my student.
As I read this I instantly ran to the stables and took a horse while the stable keeper wasn't looking,
"Guards! There's a theif!" He yelled and I leapt onto the horse and moved it into a full out sprint and the guards were firing arrows but luckily they all missed and I was able to get away far enough for the guards to give up...
I slept on a hill off the main path when I heard the clinging of metal and I woke to see black soldiers walking through the path and I hid in the grass and the black soldiers moved past and I continued to sleep through the night...
I woke up in the morning and yawned and heard footsteps and I looked to see the person who was Nao's boyfriend, or at least I assume he was, walking on the path, with his sword drawn. What is he doing here? I thought to myself and continued to follow him on my horse...
Shaosu sighed, "Why did Boss make me be the one to have to kill that Dark Wizard? She knows i'm not strong enough to kill it," Shaosu muttered as he dodged an attack from the dark Wizard. 'Guess i better use that move then...' Shaosu thought. "Hey you, promise me you won't tell anyone about this," Shaosu said to the wizard. "Huh? about what?" he asked. "This..." Shaosu said as lightning gathered into his swords. "T-That's the-!" the wizard began just as Shaosu fired his lightning strike attack at the Wizard, peircing him through his body and killing him. Shaosu panted and soon sat on the ground, he looked at his burnt hand and held it with his other hand.
"Dang..." Shaosu muttered and began to tie the arm up in bandages, "Note to self: Bring a friend along when trying a lightning strike attack," Shaosu said to himself. "Man, i should've realized using that move badly burns my hands for about a week, usually shorter since Nao would help the healing..." Shaosu muttered. He glanced behind him, "I know you're there, so come out!" Shaosu yelled.
I was hiding behind a rock and some tall grass, throughout the battle of the black wizard and I still couldn't believe how powerful that lightning blade was, I flinched though when he knew where I was and I sighed and stood up, I clicked my tongue and my horse used heal on the young man's hand and he thanked me,
"The names Shaosu, do you not have a guild?" Shaosu said and I shook my head,
"I just left the guild I used to be in, Chainfire?" I asked and gestured to his robe,
"Yeah, my brother is in it as well, well I guess the only reason that I'm even in a guild is because we need money." He said and I just remembered that I had the notice about that black wizard and I took it out and handed the notice to him,
"What's this? Oh, the wizard had a price on his head, better take its head then." He said and took out a dagger and sliced the head off in one smooth movement.
"So, how long have you been following me?" Shaosu asked,
"Umm...since this morning, I'm heading to Bangor where I'm suppose to meet my new fire magic teacher. I'm TC, I'm from the fire village." I said and he nodded,
"I know, Nao told me."
"Your dating her, aren't you?"
"He, so you know, huh?"
"Well, when your sleeping on a women's lap, you get that hint, any ways, isn't it hard dating a Soul Stream guardian?" I asked Shaosu and he nodded,
"Where are you off to? Want a ride?" I asked Shaosu and he nodded. Little did we both know that we were going to be in the same guild, after years of being seperated and little did we both know that this was going to be the last time we see each other...
"So, why do you and your brother need the money?" TC asked. "Well...you see...our mom died a few years ago and we were broke and pratically on our own. We joined in order to support ourselves...and maybe to find the guys who did this to our mother and get back at them" shaosu explained. "Sorry to hear that," Tc said. "Don't worry, i got used to it...sorta" Shaosu said. "But what about Nao? How did you two start dating?" Tc asked. "Technically we're going steady at the moment, i'm waiting until the right time to tell her how i feel," Shaosu said. "Mmhmm" Tc hummed.
They soon reached Bangor and TC got off, "Say, if you ever want a job at Chainfire, drop by the guild stone outside the west gate in Dunbarton if you want," Shaosu said. "I'll think about it," Tc said. "Okay, come on Altivo," Shaosu said to his horse, who nickered and took off.
Right, we forgot to explain why Shaosu has my horse. Well, I didn't think I'd need it so I gave it to him and he named it Altivo and as I waved goodbye to him, I walked around Bangor in search for my new teacher.
I've been to Bangor a couple of times to get the blacksmiths to repair our weapons and the people there were wonderful but I couldn't seem to find Ronal.
"You haven't figured it out yet, have you?" Kamon asked me and I frowned,
"Ronal only appears at night, he/she is the legenary guardian that was said to act like a Soul Stream guardian except he/she looks after Bangor." Kamon explained,
"He/she?" I questioned him,
"No one knows its gender." Kamon simply said and I nodded and slept outside the gates, waititng for the sun to go down...
