“She’s over here, get her!” Says a guard as they run past me from where I’m hiding in an alleyway. A kid materialises next to me soon after. “Thanks Ollie, here.” I gave him half the loaf I stole as payment for leading them away. “No problem Reika.” Ollie has deception magic, illusion magic to be specific, and can make An illusion look like anyone for a short period of time as he becomes invisible to control the puppet and when he becomes visible again, the puppet breaks.
It was a common trick he made others pay for with half of whatever got them in trouble. For me, that was stealing bread. Now, you may be thinking, why are you stealing? It’s a bad thing to steal. And, I know that, yes, it's bad, but there’s really nothing else I can do. Ollie walks off to help other kids. If we had money, we wouldn’t steal, but, well, we couldn’t earn money, as most people label us as untrustworthy and everything else under that. So while many commoners would love for us to have a job, even just a simple one, the only one we could possibly get is the adventurers guild, but if we do get the job, that means we would most likely have to help with the wave or pay the help tax, both of which I’ve managed to avoid due to my age.
However this year I’m not so sure. Dalyva’s gone too. That reminds me, I look at the time from the old library's clock, and sneak out of the alleyway, looking at the floor intently, as many who pity us drop a copper in discreet places. There. I snagged it happily, tucking it into my little dimensional bag I got from Dalyva. I really hope she wrote to me too. I slunk into the post office, just as the daily courier arrived. I watch them intently as they look through the piles of letters, sorting them. One of the people at the desk looks at me. “What's your letter from?” They ask gently. Boy did I hate that pitying tone. It was so annoying. They treated me like a starved traumatised kid. And I’m not either. “Baroness Heart. Lady Dalyva Heart.” I mutter. They look slightly surprised that I’m waiting for a letter from the nobility, but quickly school their expressions. I check my internal calendar. They should be at Esoa now, so they can post letters reasonably easily. I scurry away to an abandoned house where most orphans sleep, and break the seal. It unfolds and I look at it. It didn’t look like Dalyva’s handwriting.
It wrote-
‘Dear recipients of this letter, from the travelling scholars to you,
We are extremely apologetic to how this situation has happened, and are working to fix it at this very moment. Unfortunately, student scholar Lady Dalyva Heart disappeared while we were travelling through the area between Tingari and Dejenu. Many of our escorts recorded a disturbance in the magic and realm before this moment, and we can conclude that what has happened is she has entered another realm. We believe this realm is one we haven’t seen before, but witnesses state that the realm was purple. We will update you further as this is thoroughly investigated by those who witnessed it as they will be staying behind to help and further progress the mages work on finding this student.
-The Scholar Academy.’
My body was wracked with feelings. I shake as I read the last bit, and set it down. “No, it can’t be.” I say, trembling. One of the other kids looks over to me, then the letter I just set down. “Bad news?” He asks softly. I nod, my eyes filling with tears as my knees are pulled up in front of me, and I start to cry. My mind starts to be filled with horrible possibilities. What if there’s monsters there? She doesn’t know how to fight! She barely knows how to use her own specialisation. The other kid, definitely older, comes over and starts to rub my back soothingly with one hand as his other picks up the letter. “Hey.” He said, tapping my back. “Can you read this to me?” He says in a guilty tone, and I smile gently, remembering the only reason I know how to read is Dalyva.
I read it out to him, and by the end his face is grim. “So, basically she was taken into another realm and they can’t find her?” He asks. I nod in confirmation. He looks at me with pity, but not like the post office people's pity, it was more genuine, and understanding too. “She meant a lot to you, didn’t she?” He asks. “Yeah.” I mutter. “But it was stupid of me to think I could ever fall in love with someone, of course they’re going to leave me. One way or another.”
He glares at my words, I can tell it's not directed fully at me. “Don’t talk like that! Anyways, you should train, and get stronger.” He offers. I lift my tear stained, red puffy eyes and look at him confused. “Well, she’s going to come out of that realm stronger, so you need to get stronger to protect her from everything and everyone that will try to hurt her after she gets out of the realm. Or do you have so little faith in her you’re willing to bet she’ll just crumple and die?” I look down, in understanding.
“Can you teach me?” I ask hesitantly. He looks me over, in an assessing sort of way. “What's your spesh?” He asks. “Plant affinity.” I say. His face brightens as I say this. “Hey, you could join us fighting in a dungeon.” I look at him cautiously. “Dungeons are dangerous.” I say. He chuckles. “We’ll protect you, besides, we’ll give you a cut of our pay, so you don’t have to officially be part of our party. This can be a trial run, deal?” He offers out his hand. I look at him cautiously, assessing his words. “Would you teach me how to wield a weapon?” I say. “And what weapon would it be?” He looks at me, surprised by my question but answers. “Well, what weapon do you think would suit you?” He asks, looking over my skinny build, and my pointy ears. “A bow?”
I think for a moment, before nodding. “Yeah, maybe. I’ll try it out.” I say. He nods and stands up, holding out his hand to help me up. Although I was still devastated that Dalyva was missing, this distracted me long enough to move around and be productive. I grasp his hand, and he pulls me up. “Do you have a deal with me that I shall teach you how to fight, and you will fight with our team?” I grin, and nod eagerly. “Yes.” I say confidently. I could tell that he wasn’t trying to be mean, just appealing to what my body looked like and what I could probably handle.
He takes me to his team, in a clearing that has several different things, like targets and training dummies that have taken many wailings. The training dummies are made of straw, and are packed thickly, with one braided straw tying it together in several places to make different features. It’s a real work of art, and the people who make them are highly appreciated for their amazing work. It’s not expensive though, as the people who make them, especially here, want them to be affordable so many people can train and practice fighting.
He gathered them around, and started introducing them to me. “This is Leia, our ranger. She fights with her dagger.” He said, pointing to a draconian woman with dark skin and short curly black hair. She has almond brown eyes, and a kind smile, and a rogue’s cloak.“This is our mage, Harvey, who uses the fire element, and can manifest it easily as she’s trained for a long time.” I look at the mage, who has black robes with orange on the inside, and is an elf. He has bright red hair, probably due to his specialisation affecting it, and he has a happy, excited look on his face, almost like a puppy with his amount of excitement. “The last member is Dennis, he’s our main offence.” I look at Dennis, he’s an orc, a head taller than me, and has green skin. He also has two bottom tusks protruding from his mouth. “He uses a claymore.” He adds, and at that moment I realise he hasn’t introduced himself, but I go first. “I’m Reika Myst.” I say, with a slight nod of my head. The leader of the adventuring party returned with a- “I’m Lark, and the leader of our adventuring party- Orphans and War.” I crack a small smile at the name.
“That’s creative.” I say. Lark chuckles and agrees with me. “Yeah, but it's also true. Because we’re declaring war against the monsters!” He raises his sword as he says this. But eventually he stops his antics and goes over to a weapons rack, where there are lots of weapons. I look at them in surprise. “How do you get this many weapons?” I ask in surprise, as weapons are really expensive.
“Oh, those?” Said Leia, answering for Lark as he’s getting something from the rack. “Most of them are other peoples weapons. You can take the other ones though if you always use your own weapons and have donated a decent amount to buying these weapons and keeping this training area running.” As she says this, she points to a bucket. “That’s the bucket people put their money in. It has magic to recognise how much you contribute so you don’t just pay one copper and then get all the weapons and sell them.” I nod, it’s really smart.
Lark soon returns with a bow and some arrows, and hands me them. He gestures for me to go try them out, and I go over to the firing range. As I’m looking at the targets made of straw, and a layer of paint showing the middle and edge rings, I start loading my bow, however my thoughts run away and I start thinking of one certain person. Her golden hair that always shone in the sun, her amethyst purple eyes that would shine as she talked to me, only to dull as she looked at the scholar academy with dread, and I would always chuckle at that. How she always had a smile when she talked about her ambitions to fight and become stronger. She always loved talking about things like that.
How when her hair was untied, it was like silk as I ran my fingers through it as she leaned into me, wanting to stay within me and escape her fathers expectations in the scholar academy. She absolutely hated the academy, and I didn’t particularly understand her, until now. Now, I realise that she was right, the academy was terrible. It didn’t care about its students, they spoke so formally when saying that one of their own students-and from the nobility no less-had just disappeared into another realm. They seemed to care more about the research of the realm than saving her from it!
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I hated them. The last memory of Dalyva i had, when her father was out, she invited me in, i finally had a shower-one of the best things in the world-and then we made biscuits. They were amazing, with chocolate that melted instantly as you put it in your mouth, and the biscuit itself being able to easily dissolve in a whirl of flavours on your tongue. Then, we didn’t do much. We cleaned up, did the dishes, and Dalyva decided to brush my mess of light purple blue hair. Just merely remembering how she softly pulled the brush through my hair in order not to hurt me had me smiling, but what always made me happy was feeling how my hands ran through my hair smoothly.
I was snapped back to reality when a certain someone jabbed me lightly. “Daydreaming?” Asked Leia. “No.” I say quickly, lifting the bow with an arrow on it. She just chuckled and shook her head. I take a deep breath, pull back the string, and shoot. Instantly the bow is dropped as I hiss in pain. Leia chuckles and grabs the bow as it falls. I don’t even pay attention to where the arrow landed. “You should’ve waited.” She doesn’t seem mad though, I think I got my punishment in the bow hitting my forearm as it unloaded the arrow. She hands me a leather guard, and leather gloves that only have full fingers on two fingers, the pointer and middle finger, the others are only up a third way up the fingers. “These are classics among archers. They’re guards so your fingers don’t hurt.” She bonks my head affectionately. “Idiot. You should’ve waited.”
I put them on and pull another arrow on the string. Pulling it back, my fingers certainly didn’t hurt as much, and the string didn’t dig into my fingers. Then I look at the target. The first arrow had hit the outer ring, and was barely on the target. I line up my shot, and shoot. The arrow whistles through the air, and lands in the ring just one ring in from the outer ring. A grin cracks my lips.
I continue to practice, with Leia correcting my stance and position as the sun sets. Once the sun has set, we put the weapons back, but not before Lark wraps a piece of white tape on the bow string at the top. I look at it curiously. “Why did you do that?” I ask, looking at the tape curiously. “It means the bow is being used by our adventuring party, since that's our colour on the rack. It also means we take responsibility should anything happen to it or it breaks.” I nod in understanding. “Okay.” I say. We soon disband, and I head back to the abandoned building where I came from as it becomes night. As I sit down in my corner, Ollie comes over to me with a kid. “Reika.” He said, looking a bit nervous. I look up. “Yeah Ol?” I ask. Ollie looks guilty before saying quietly.
“His parents died on the way here from a monster attack.” He mutters, looking uncomfortable. “You know the guards. They left him on the streets. I suppose he should go to the Church?” I nod, and understand, since Ollie has a mixed history with the church. Not a good one either. The kid looks no older than five or six, and I can tell why he looks uncomfortable. Ollie isn’t good with kids regardless. “Hey kid.” I say softly, not sure what to say. The kid looks up at me, his eyes red and face scrunched up into a face of sadness and fear. “Here, I’ll take you somewhere safe.” I grab his hand gently, and tug the kid along. I walk up to the white building that is the church, it has several plants, flowers and vines around. I walk up to the door, and knock.
A person in a normal brown dress opens the door. Looking at the kid, she understands. You see, I’m too old to be in the orphanage, especially with the number of kids that they have, which is an absurd 30 or something. Maybe if there was less I’d be able to, but not at this time, especially before a monster wave. It’ll only increase in the week-long wave of constant monsters. I leave the kid, and walk back to the abandoned building, where Ollie is. “Sorry for putting that on you.” He says. I shake my head. “It’s fine Ol, I understand.”
Finally I can sit down and eat my bread I stole this morning. Sure it was tough, and it was a bit old, but it was good.
Over the next few days, I trained with the Orphans and War. I had a good time, not constantly thinking of Dalyva, i mean, it was good to have a break from worrying. I loved her, and wanted to think about her, but it was just a bit of stress right now, not knowing where she is and whether she’s okay. Five days into this training, Lark came up to me and Leia as we practiced archery. “Hey, you’re getting good with that!” He says, referring to how I managed to get bullseye shots almost all the time, and are now practicing with moving targets. I nod happily as he looks over at Leia. “We were thinking of doing one of the dungeons. Reika can be with us so she can practice her skills and we can show her the ropes on how to navigate a dungeon.”
Leia nods, and starts to pack up her throwing knives. I look over worriedly. “Already?” I say. I tried to mask the slight hint of nervousness, knowing it doesn’t help, but I couldn't help it, I was nervous. I’ve always had the habit, and when Dalyva pointed it out to me, I was slightly happy that she noticed enough to point it out, but sad that I couldn’t be strong enough to not worry. Leia notices this as well, just like Dalyva, and grins. “Don’t worry.” She says softly, before in a more joking tone. “Besides, if it gets out of hand we can always sacrifice Dennis or Lark while we run away.” The corners of my mouth uplift as Lark looks at Leia with disbelief. “Your own childhood best friend.” He says indignantly, before turning away with a huff. “I can’t believe it!”
Me and her exchange a glance before bursting into giggles, seeing Lark do a ridiculous run over to Dennis as he points at us and probably complains about our ‘meanness’ to Dennis while we just giggle and laugh. It’s a nice change from the streets.
We walked into the forest, where a portal maybe 40cm off the ground and swirled a light green colour. “This is a forest dungeon.” Says Leia at my obvious confusion. “Is that why it's green?” I ask, and she nods in confirmation. “That’s right.” Lark looks over at us, Dennis having already stuck his hand into the portal with a grin, and Harvey a bit more reserved but still only a step behind Dennis. “Alright gang.” Said Lark, catching everyone’s attention. “Let’s go!” They all grin and head in, Leia pulling in so I don’t hesitate.
A strange feeling enters me. It’s like everything in my body is swirling around, and I resist the urge to throw up as Leia looks down at me in obvious pity. “Haven’t used a dungeon or gate before, have you?” She said, chuckling as she looked at my pale face. “No, I haven’t.” I groan, and she hands me a herb in sympathy. “Here, it reduces nausea. Eat it.” Gratefully, i take it and eat it like no tomorrow. Instantly I feel the effects coming on, and my stomach settles. Dennis and Harvey are looking back at me, but once I get up, they look to Lark, as if asking if they can start hunting the monsters. However he shakes his head, and points to me. “Dalyva.” He says, and I look up at him. “Yeah?” I ask. “You’re going to shoot at as many deer as you can while they’re still grazing, and we’ll continue from there, alright?” I nod, and start to set up my bow. My arrows on my back.
I pull the bowstring back with a nervous, quick glance to Leia, and seeing her nod encouragingly, i shoot one, pulling out another arrow, i attach it and shoot again, and then a third arrow is shot before the first hits the deer, something I’m immensely proud of, my quickdraws. The first arrow goes straight through the deers head, and it collapses onto the ground. My second arrow nicks the deer by the ear, as the first arrow unnerved the deer and they had started moving, however my third arrow managed to get lodged in a deers shoulder.
Lark nodded as the deer I killed dissolved into rainbow mist. I look at it in fascination, but heaps of deer are surrounding the goods we’re getting. The boys then head in, as well as Leia, and they proceed to defeat the rest of the deer with practiced coordination. Harvey at the back is protected by Lark and his shield, while Lark’s magic shields are on Dennis and Leia. Dennis immediately goes in for the bashing, and Leia rushes in sideways, throwing knives in hand as she kills the deer. They quickly eliminate the deer with minor injuries and scratches, and I walk up to them as they gather together. I, foolishly, put my head over the rainbow mist, curious, and am immediately regretting it as I gag and almost throw up if not for the herb Leia gave me. Lark shakes his head in sympathy. “Yeah, the rainbow mist is the worst part about any dungeon.”
I nod. “I… can see that now.” I say, as I regain my breaths and don’t throw up. As we continue on, I see a couple wolves in the distance. “May I try shoot them?” I ask, and Lark turns back to me, his heavy shield out in front of him. He nods, and I take out my bow once we reach a respectable distance. “Yeah, just do one however, as the wolves are most likely going to just rush us after one of them is dead, and so it’d be pointless to waste a perfectly good arrow.” I acknowledge his statement, and load up my arrow. Putting the wolf unobscured by the forest in my view, I pull the bowstring back with familiar muscle aches, and take a deep breath, letting it out as I let the arrow go.
The arrow flies through the air quickly, and I watch in anticipation as it approaches its target, knocking it in the head, and killing it. We can hear the wolves howls of anger, and they, true to Lark’s word, rush us. Lark and the rest start fighting back, and eventually the wolves are dead. “This is a shorter dungeon, so we only have one more room to go.” Says Leia. “Really?!” I say in surprise and confusion. “I thought dungeons are supposed to be longer?” Leia smiles. “They usually are, but this ones a wood rank dungeon bordering on high common, so it’s not the hardest, and pretty easy if you want easy money.”
“Huhhh…” I say, thinking about it as we walk. “So what rank are you guys then?” I ask, just curious. “We’re all low wood rank, except Dennis, whose middle wood.” I nod. As we approach the last room, there’s a big door that looks like it would be pretty heavy, but Dennis easily pushes it open. I look at him in fascination. This is what they meant in school by doors in dungeons mostly being very light despite their looks.
Finally, it's the boss. A bear. It’s huge, maybe 5 metres tall, ten if it raised itself into its back paws. Way bigger than us. The others however look at it with eagerness, and not trepidation. My mind however keeps looking at its claws and what would happen if they just so happened to end up in my stomach.
In this fight, Lark proves why he is the leader of their group and not someone else, as he commands them all, even while locked in combat with the bear and blocking its strikes. Eventually, Leia manages to get a good throw of her knife, and it landed in the bears eye, before Dennis taking advantage of it earring up in pain to slice its neck with his claymore, and running out the other side before it collapsed to the ground, sure to squash any who were under it, even one as strong as Dennis.
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As I ponder on how to make dirt, an image flashes through my mind, a memory. It was of Shankhe’s hand. How it was purple. I reflected on the last few days, and seemingly have no recollection of seeing his hand. I look over to him, seeing him sitting on the ground as well, and his whole forearm and hand on that side covered up. Nervously, and with anxiety, I got up, walked over to him, and nervously pulled off the glove, all before he could stop me.
I stare at the purple skin in shock, silent. Shankhe looks at it as well, and Dalyva third all stare at his purple skin. He pulls it away slowly. “Shankhe….”