Chp 3 A Problem Arises

The second I touched the wall I knew something would happen. Energy raced up my arm and paralyzed my whole body. I became temporarily numb, and then it vanished. When I looked around however, I noticed that everything was entirely different. The area around me was filled to the brim with life. I saw lush grasses and felt vicarious feelings of joy from my environment. The whole place gave off an aura that told me that I was entirely safe.

While I was surrounded by all of the plant life there was something that bothered me about the wall in front of me. The wall itself glowed a faint energy of mixed colors. It was bright, vibrant, and furthermore called out to be touched. I looked around my surroundings for Ritsuko to see if she might also happen to be here to see this sight, but sadly she was nowhere around.

I walked forward towards the wall making sure to be cautious as I did. This wall however while it was strange also dispelled any doubts I had. I walked closer to it until I was standing directly in front of it. The wall itself was blank and had no markings on it however also seemed to radiate immense energy to the point I could feel vibrations in my bone. The wall stood around ten feet tall, but for some reason I knew that wasn’t it’s actual height.

I slowly reach my hand forward to touch the stone,  “Maeno, this wall will give you great strength, but there will be a terrible cost for it” I hear the voice say.

I turned around to see a woman in a silky white dress sitting atop a nearby stone. I walk over to her and greet her, seeing as how she seems friendly enough. She has auburn hair that falls to her knees. Her hair is braided and seems to be have a shiny gleam to it.. Her skin is the color of almonds, and her eyes are a fierce brown.

“Who are you?” I ask. She says “My name is Caroline. I am the guardian of the ‘Gate of Truth, which is where we are.” I’m not really puzzled as to how she knows my name, if she really is the guardian she would know everyone who enters.

I look up at Caroline and ask her “What is the Gate of Truth?”

She smiles and says “The Gate of Truth is your magic seal. When you use any form of magic it comes from this gate.”

I nod my head excitedly and then ask “Magic really exists?!”

She starts laughing and says “Of course it exists Maeno; it always has.” I am excited ever since Ritsuko told me about gods and magic I’ve wanted to learn magic.

”What kind of magic can I use?” I ask.

She says, “You’ve been gifted with a very powerful magic known as ‘Summoning’ magic. If I am not mistaken, you gathered two stones on your journey, did you not?” I nod excitedly and she replies “Alright, first you need understand that you are responsible for what happens when magic is used. With magic, everything has a value and a cost” she says.

“With summoning magic the cost is that the longer you have your familiars out the more magic energy will be consumed. This can be resolved by simply training your body and using your magic to build up a tolerance”, she says. “If you do get knocked unconscious your familiars can only remain here with their own power and once they lose all energy, they must come back here to recharge, or they will slowly die” Caroline says.

“Since you have been gifted with magic I must ask what you plan on using it for before we continue” she says.

I think about it for a moment. I then look at her with a smile and say “I’m going to protect the gods from the people.”

She responds “Well, then it’s a good thing you are a ‘Summoner,’ you’re going to need all the help you can get. Go touch your gate and then your magic will start flowing. I reach my hand forward and touch the gate. The second I touch the gate, sixteen different symbols appear and the lines connecting each of them. I feel the symbol on the wall burn into my left arm. “Don’t show your mark to anyone else regardless of reason”, Caroline says to me.

“The reason there are sixteen marks is because summoners are allowed access to each god’s magic abilities unlike any other magic user. They must open all of the different sections of the gate in order to summon familiars because of how much power they require to control” Caroline says to me.

I nod understandingly and ask her “How do I summon my familiars?”

“First you must hold the stone they are contained in. Once that has happened you read aloud the names of each familiar on the stones along with their numbers and its gate type. After that the stone disappears and their gateway into this world is you.” Caroline said wryly.

I pull out the stone with Lucci on it and said,” Open Gate of Water Fifth Star Lucci come forth”. Out of the rock springs a water pike surrounded by floating water encasing it.

Lucci looks at me and says” Fifth Star Lucci reporting in!” In an excited girly voice that is mostly covered by the gurgling of the water.

“Who is your god” I ask Lucci

“My god is Aquarius the water bearer” Lucci squeals

I pull out my other stone to see its name. The engravings on it are no longer there and it reads: Zere.

“I wonder what Zere looks like,” I remark. ”Open Gate of Light Third Star Zere.”

From the stone comes a shimmery liquid. It is grey,  transparent and glistens when all of the light refracts off of it. It also appears to be lifeless at first, but as it stretches out it seems to be more animated. The liquid crawls behind me to where my shadow laid and takes the shape of my it and stands up. Zere seems to slink over when standing up as he is getting use to his new form and then straightens up when he is about to speak. Zere looks at me and says “Third Star Zere here to serve.” I look at zere and reach out my hand for him to shake.

Zere says “It would be a great honor to shake your hand Master Maeno.” The shadowy figure reaches his hand forward and even though I expected to feel nothing, I feel a human hand grabbing mine when we shake.

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“I’m glad to have you along Zere.” Zere nods his head and remains silent.

Lucci garbles “Master Maeno, what about me”, in a whiny, uncertain tone.

I look back at Lucci and laugh. “I’m glad to have you along as well, Lucci.”

Lucci does a little dance inside of her water bubble and I hear Zere say “Contain yourself in front of our new master, Lucci.”

Zere has a rather assertive manner about him when addressing me, I note to myself. Lucci on the other hand seems to be carefree, provided I’m giving her attention. Zere looks at me “If I may ask, what is your desire for summoning us, Master Maeno?”

“We are going to save the gods from dying if at all possible.” Zere looks at me and says “Master Maeno, you are a man with great ambitions, I only hope I live up to your expectations.”

“I do as well because I’m going to need both of you on this mission of mine.”

Zere nods his head and says “Master Maeno, I will take my leave now. I will come forth again when you require me. Is that alright with you?”

I tell him “You have permission to leave if you want, I of course don’t plan on forcing you to do anything against what you wish.” Zere nods and  disappears into a beam of light returning to his rune mark on my left forearm. Lucci, on the other hand, does not leave and remains in her bubble. She looks up at me expectantly. “Lucci, are you wanting me to give you your first order?”

Lucci shifts uncomfortably in her bubble before muttering “Yes.”

I look at her and say “Lucci, your first order is to cheer up and stop writhing uncomfortably”. Lucci straightens up and then looks at me again.

I “Lucci, you are on standby until I call for you.” She seems please by this and disappears into the rune on top of my right hand. I take notice of each of their signs. Lucci’s sign is some form of serpent and Zere’s is an embroidery mirror. I look up around for Caroline to see where she had gone. Lucci’s sign is on the back of my right hand and Zere’s is on my left arm just below my shoulder.

Caroline is gone, but I hear her voice in the distance, far off ”Now that I’ve given you the tutorial on how to use your magic you need to return to your world.”

“Thanks for teaching me Caroline!” I exclaim with joy.

“No problem, Maeno, but now you need to return to your world”, Caroline says to me.

I immediately put my right hand in my pocket to hide Lucci’s sign and Zere’s sign is already hidden by my shirt. Behind me I hear the voice of a girl ask “Is this wall real.

Before I can respond, I hear Ritsuko falter and say, “This wall...this wall is real,” and starts dragging me away from the outer gate while everyone drifts into a panic. Ritsuko makes sure that nobody sees our faces as we leave. I know that she just lied to them because I myself touched the wall and know it is fake. I look to Ritsuko to see if she will make any kind of response, but she doesn’t.

Ritsuko continues dragging me along by the hand until we are in an alley. The alley itself is dark enough that you can’t see the whole street. It is cluttered with items people had dropped and trash littered every inch it could find. It was honestly kind of dirty in here, but I don’t really mind all that much considering my room is also a mess back in Haruna village.

Ritsuko turns around “Maeno, we can’t tell these people the wall isn't’ real,” she whispers, If we do, that’s just more people we will have to fight to protect the gods! If they reach out and touch that gate, they will be granted the powers from it. We can’t let that happen.”

I paused to think for a moment. I then came to the conclusion that at least one more person will touch the wall.“Yes, but you just caused a panic inside the city, I’m sure that by now a few of them have touched it, soon the whole city will place their hands on it.”

“If that’s the case, then we need to get out of here when that happens,” Ritsuko says to me. “Maeno I’m just trying to keep us safe now please listen to me and leave before we get in any trouble” she says earnestly.

I decided to go with what she says for now and she leads me to the next closest exit and we slip through the fake wall.

She looks back at me  “What happened to you while you were in the gate?”

I don’t want to lie, so I tell her what Caroline had told me “I’m not suppose to share that information.”

Ritsuko frowns and says “Maeno, I’m your best friend I would never do anything to hurt you. I’ll show you my mark if you show me yours” she says. I have known Ritsuko for many years, I have no reason to doubt her word.

I pull up my sleeve to reveal my mark. She asks in distaste “It’s just a dot? I thought it would be something more obvious.”

“What are you talking about Ritsuko?” I ask her in surprise.

“Maeno, it’s just a dot”. I understand what Caroline meant now. Only I know what my mark is.

Ritsuko pulls down her glove and I see a wicked skull smiling down at a door. “You got the mark of the ‘God of Death’ I presume?” I ask. She nods her head slowly. “At least that’s more interesting than mine”, I joke.

She half-heartedly smiles at me and says “Yeah.”

I ask her if we are going to the village and report the news. “Unfortunately we can’t go back now,” she said, a sad glint in her eyes.  “We have magic now.”

I ask Ritsuko “What do you mean?”

She looks down and says “If we tell anyone about that gate, then we are merely making more enemies. If possible, I’d like to keep you as far from danger as possible,” Ritsuko said sullenly.

 “I agree. We need to make a guild then” I state.

Ritsuko  “Yes and that will also help us out since we won’t have to take quests all the time. She looks at me to see if I am following and then continues. “In order to create a guild however we would need to go back into town to check out what the standards for creating a guild are at the moment,” Ritsuko says.

We head back to where the main guild hall is. The guild hall is in a bit of panic after the news that magic has started to appear again. I hear one of the people in the hall say that someone found out they had magic by touching the front gate and now everyone was touching it.

This causes most of them to head towards the wall that had appeared. As for the ones who do stay I ask “If it would be possible to start a guild up”. The person I’m talking to points us to a girl across the room who is sitting behind a counter, she had fallen asleep while sitting on a stool. Ritsuko and I walk across the room to where she sits. Before I wake her I take a look around once again. “This guild hall really is remarkable” I say aloud

I look down at her and say “Miss, wake up, we need help with something.” The lady looks up at me groggily.

She frowns at me “You’re that kid from before that came in earlier, right?” Now that she is sitting up I know what she looks like. She has blonde curly hair, and her skin is a cream color. She has a beauty mark below her right eye that is a single brown dot. Her lips are cherry red, and she has a weird aura about her. The other thing I notice is she is packed with ballistics  as I glance across her chest area. She is wearing a blue dress with buttons down the center and it is frilly. The lace atop her chest runs across her breast in a cross manner. She seems pretty young to have this job title. In all honesty, she looks around twenty five or so.

I say in response to what she previously said “Yes, do you know how we could create a guild by chance, miss?”

She seems interested in what I said as she flips through a book she pulled out from under the table. “At the moment there is only three guilds; This one included and there hasn’t been a new one for at least thirty years. What’s your reason for wanting a guild?” She asks me. That  is going to be tough to answer. If I say we got magic, she would believe us considering this rumour, but I’m not sure we would have access to a guild.

Ritsuko butts in before I can open my mouth, “We would like to be able to amass lots of money by killing monsters,” she said, looking around to make sure no wandering ears were nearby, but we wanted our own guild to take on missions instead of simply applying for missions here all the time.” The lady gives me a questioning glance and I agree with Ritsuko.

The lady says “I just realized i never introduced myself. My name is Karla. I’m the guild owner’s daughter.” she says.

I ask her the price for a guild and she says “Well there is no price perse for a guild there is merely a few tasks that must be done. First you must have at least three people for a guild. Second, you must , at least, complete one quest and have proof of it. Lastly, you must have made your guild icon before coming in here so we can hand over the rights to have a guild. As far as making the guild house, we don’t provide you with one so you will have to make your own,” Karla says.

“I see. And do you by chance happen to have a quest we could do to get the guild?” I ask.

Karla looks up at me and says “I don’t have a quest for two people.”

I look at Ritsuko and she turns back to the woman “We will be back with a third person in due time. Could you reserve a quest for us so we can take it when we get back?” Ritsuko asks Karla. Karla responds with “You only have three days to reserve a mission before it becomes public again.

We leave the guild hall and I look at Ritsuko. I shift near Ritsuko and whisper in her ear “It’s going to be difficult to find someone who supports our cause.”

She looked away as she replies: “We have to find someone if we are going to save the gods. We are going to need more help anyways,” Ritsuko says.

“Well, we’d better get searching then,” I said. I look around and the streets are complete hell. With all the people in the streets Barui is ten times busier then normal.