Music: Epilogue

The Clarent Saga Chronicles Companions – Where Are They Now?

It has taken me some time to write down everything that happened on that journey the fourteen of us made across Gard and into Braxia. I have tried to record everything as faithfully as I could. Of course, nobody can remember what was said perfectly, so lots of the dialogue I have invented, but the basic details of what took place are entirely accurate.

Now that I have finally completed my chronicle, I thought you might like to know what became of the companions; what they did after our adventure together.

I shall treat them in reverse order from the order that we met them along the journey.

So that means Alex comes first. Alex was ever a mystery, and remains so. Shortly after Ursula teleported us all back to Gard, as soon as we were all rested and recovered Alex said his goodbyes and set off traveling by himself again. He took the Clarent Sword with him, of course—Horatio didn’t think that he would be able to keep it forever, only to wield it for a time, for his moment of destiny. Alex said something about needing to hide the Sword and his legendary treasures again to keep them safer for the next time Brax rises. Well, if that ever happens, hopefully it won’t be in my lifetime. If it does, I’m sure Alex will be ready for him, and perhaps some other set of unlikely heroes will be around to help out again too.

I still think about that conversation we witnessed between him and Brax in the Pit of Tartarus sometimes. I don’t pretend to understand all of what was said, but some of it has started to make more sense to me over time.

Then there’s Tyler. You would have thought that Tyler would have disappeared the instant that we defeated Brax, given that his timeline would no longer exist, but actually it took a bit longer than that. Which was nice, because I always enjoyed talking with Tyler. He said the reason that it took a bit longer for him to disappear was something to do with the ‘timestream’ needing to sort itself out or something or other. And sure enough, on the second day after we returned to Balamb, while he was in Olivia’s living room speaking with Walter and Ursula about what they were like in his future, he suddenly started to just…fade away. That’s the best way I can describe it. He started becoming fainter, less substantial, translucent. And then he wasn’t there anymore. I’m not sure he went, to be honest, Maybe that version of him simply stopped existing.

I’m not really too worried about him, however, for reasons which will soon become clear. This brings me to Walter and Ursula. Well, I think you can predict what happened to the two of them. You’d think that a romance based on the discovery that your future selves have got together and had a child wouldn’t work, but it completely has. I think what it has allowed them to do is skip all the early awkward stages of a courtship where you have to work out whether the other person is romantically inclined towards you or not, much like Horatio and Ceres had to go through in the early days, since they were both told by their future son that they were already attracted to one another and had a child in another timeline. So they just got on with it. They were married within a week of our return and, sure enough, what should turn up nine months later but a bouncing baby boy. You can guess what they called him. He has light blue hair.

They still manage to get a lot of other stuff done while parenting, though. Now they travel around Gard adventuring as a trio. There are still plenty of monsters to clear out on the mainland, and Ursula also rescues and looks after victims of the Cult, or people who have reconverted back to Qindiantity from Braxianism.

Next would be Ross. Sorry, I mean Rossalento Qumbrick Macaventa IV. Ross finally got to fulfil his dream. Having helped to defeat Brax in this epoch, and redeem himself for inadvertently leading the Cult to the Clarent Sword (we tend not to talk about that), he at last saw himself as in a position to restore his fallen nation of Xanadu. And who did he choose, or who chose him, to begin repopulating it with? Wyvera! I didn’t really see that one coming. But thinking about it now, it makes total sense. Ross was a family man, in his past life as a prince of Xanadu, and (when he isn’t inadvertently leading deceptive magicians to the location of legendary weapons) he’s a good man—reliable, trustworthy, kind. Just the sort of man that Wyvera wasn’t used to encountering and therefore, apparently, that she was attracted to. Last I heard they were are happy together, and have had not just one but several children. With a bit of help (including from Walter and Ursula), they’ve purged Old Xanadu of monsters, and now they’ve started inviting people from all around the rest of Gard to come to live with them and begin New Xanadu with them. I hear that it’s become extremely popular and that people are flocking there in their droves to start new lives and follow their dreams, and because of the warm and pleasant climate. Maybe I’ll take a holiday there one day to visit Ross and Wyvera.

Now Olivia. Understandably, Olivia was pretty cut up about her Grandfather Primus. She spent a good many weeks mourning him, dressing in black, and refusing to leave his old house, where she lived too, in [Balamb? Can’t remember]. I think it was especially hard for her after having lost her parents to the Cult too, when she was younger. However, it eased her pain that Primus was quite elderly when he went, and that he gave his life willingly for her, and for all the rest of us, for Gard, and for Qind. Even if his fatal Meteor spell didn’t kill the Leader of the Cult of Brax in the end, or stop Brax from being summoned, it sure as hell did some damage to the Leader, and it wiped out most of the monsters in that final chamber—without it, I think we would have been overrun by them. Anyway, once her time of focused mourning was up, Olivia needed to decide what to do next. She inherited Primus’s house, of course, but she still needed to make a living for herself. So she started making money as a seer, reading people’s fortunes and making prophecies and predictions for them about where they will go and what they will become. She is extremely good at it—the best in the land.

Helen. I’m sure I don’t even need to tell you what Helen is doing. After some extended time with Ceres which she used to heal from the trauma she suffered at the hands of Sampson, the Braxian Captain, which Ceres tells me she had to temporarily ‘repress’ in order to get on with the rest of our adventure, she headed out on the hunt again. She said that her hunts first for Olivia and second for the Clarent Sword were the greatest of her life to date, but that there are always greater hunts, and greater preys, greater quarries, to pursue. So she set out in search of them, on her own, back to doing what she loved most. There are still some particularly nasty monsters that remain undefeated out there around Gard, so she is probably hunting them down. And she also said something about wanting to hunt Alex, too, since nobody knows exactly where he is and he only turns up in random bits of hearsay and gossip these days. At night when I look out over the hills from where our house stands, sometimes I can swear I catch a glimpse of Helen, ranging determinedly over the ground, chasing her quarry. But it is probably just some trick of my mind.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Silvia. Strangely, although not that strangely if I think about it, after our adventure Silvia decided that she wanted to go back to the orphanage that she had escaped from, to turn it into a better place. Ceres went with her (more on that in a little while). I’m not entirely sure what brought about this change in Silvia. Maybe it was something to do with what she went through with all of us, sticking through the journey with us and finding a new family with all of us…I don’t know. In any case, when they got back to Silvia’s orphanage it turned out that the owners had abandoned it. They had been involves in all sorts of horrible Braxian dealings, like selling children to people like Hector, the pimp that Wyvera worked for (Silvia hadn’t told us about this before, though it was the reason she ran away) but with the downfall of the Cult triggered by our defeat of Brax they got in trouble and had to leave town. That left all the children they had been ‘looking after’ all by themselves. So, what do you know, but Silvia and Ceres decided to take charge of the orphanage, and run it themselves, and do a proper job of it, unlike the previous owners did. Some of the other kids took a bit of convincing to listen to Silvia because they had known her from before--those that were still there, that is—but after hearing about what she did and the journey she had been on they came around quickly enough. She’s become quite the young woman. And she only steals things occasionally these days…

Who’s next…? Ah yes, Ouzo! Ouzo got to have his dream come true too. Since he had been the apothecary and shopkeeper of a famous monster-hunting band, just like he wanted—because, yes, we have become somewhat famous, both for what we did before we got to Braxia, but also for what we did in Braxia, insofar as people believe the stories—he was able to open his own shop, in Balamb, selling all sorts of ointments and oddments and concoctions of his own creation, recipes he picked up along the way of our journey or invented himself, including everything from poultices for curing swollen testicles to whizz-bang fire-crackers for celebrating on festival nights. His shop is called ‘Ouzo’s Bizarre’. He never really did get the hang of spelling. I don’t have the heart to tell him it’s spelled wrong. But I don’t need to, as I think the name itself has become legendary and is part of the appeal of the shop, which has become wildly successful. Not only is he enjoying a wonderful reputation as a purveyor of quality goods, and making a lot of coin, he is also doing a lot to raise the status and favour of the Wolf Clan. People are starting to look down on them less and treat them more like the people they are thanks to guys like Ouzo. A lone wolf indeed—or, more like it, a one-of-a-kind wolf.

Then comes Wyvera. I already told you that Wyvera ended up marrying Ross and settling in New Xanadu, but I didn’t tell you what she’s doing there. She’s become a famous dancer! And not of the kind that she was when we met her in Balamb, dancing in a seductive way for lonely and lustful men. Instead, she’s made a name for herself as a great “ballet” dancer. They practice and patronise all sorts of arts in New Xanadu, and one of them is “ballet”: I’m told it’s a form of high art where women and men dance to orchestral music, and the art lies in the grace, poise, control and beauty of the dancing. I haven’t seen a ballet yet but I hope to see one when I take my holiday in New Xanadu, not so that I can ogle Wyvera (Qind forbid; I’m told the costumes are very tasteful) but so that I can see what all the fuss is about. Apparently Wyvera is extremely good at ballet, and she’s been transformed into a darling of New Xanadu high society almost overnight. I’m really happy for her, especially considering where she came from.

Egea? It was a revelation to me when I discovered that Egea was only so interested in all that gold because she was trying to make money to support her family back in Balamb. Well, she certainly achieved that goal! Between all the loot and gear that she managed to pick up in the course of our journey, and charging us for the rental of the clothing she procured for us, and all the trading and selling she did along the way, she managed to make a small fortune. More than enough for her to both buy a mansion in Balamb for her relatives and to still have gold left over afterwards to reinvest in her business. Because did making all this money cause Egea to retire from her career as a trader? Of course it didn’t! But the difference is that now, as well as a highly adept and prosperous trader, she’s become a philanthropist: about ninety percent of the money she makes, she invests in charitable initiatives or gives away to good causes. She has a large stake in Ouzo’s Bizarre, and is his chief supplier of any items which he doesn’t make himself. She is also the continent’s biggest funder of hunting bands hired to clear up the remaining monsters around the place and root out the last remnants of the Braxian Cult. And she’s also the main funder of the orphanage that Ceres and Silvia set up. Egea’s awesome. For most of our journey I thought that she was obsessed with getting rich for herself but it turned out that the only reason she wanted to make money was so that she could give (most of it) away.

Primus you know all about. Sadly, his story ended in the course of our adventure, at least the Gardian part of it did. Ceres tells me that death is not the end, and that for those who place their trust in Qind and give their lives to him, as Primus did, especially at the end, there is a second life, one that lasts forever. I sure hope she’s right. In any case, I’m signed up to that too now, so I guess I will find out if she is or not for myself. So maybe I’ll see Primus again one day. Truth be told, I never really liked Primus that much. He was grumpy, and bossy, and he always had to have his own way. But say one thing for him: he went out in pretty amazing style. He put it all on the table and left everything out in the field—he didn’t hold anything back, and he died giving everything he had, sacrificing himself for…well, I’ve said all this before. Say for one thing for him; when I go, I want to go like Primus, or at least I want to have lived my life in the way that Primus lived his life in the last moments: for others, and holding nothing back. And seeing as we all have to go one day anyway, we might as well go like that. Primus left behind a legacy an illustrious scholarly career with many influential contributions to the study of Magic, the fact that he was an important contributor—if not the chief instigator—of the band that overthrew Brax in this epoch, a very big house in Balamb, and of course his lovely granddaughter. Despite his flaws, that’s a pretty amazing legacy, if you ask me.

And lastly, but by no means least, I suppose that just leaves me and Ceres. Yep, this is Horatio writing here. I tried to throw you off the sent by referring to myself in the third person earlier (and all through this Chronicle), but maybe you guessed it was me already. I’ve already told you that Ceres has ended up running an orphanage, but I’m also very happy to report that very soon after we returned to Gard Ceres agreed to court me and that then after a relatively short courtship she decided that she did want to marry me after all! Praise Qind! We’ve been married twelve years now, and that’s as long as it’s taken me to finish writing this record of what I’ve called the Clarent Saga all down! In my defence, we’ve been busy. We have a little girl and a little boy (it took me a long time to write this because looking after them takes up most of my energy!), Bianca and Benvito, who take up a lot of our time, though less so now that they are older. And as well as that, even before she decided she wanted to marry me Ceres had decided that she wanted to run Silvia’s old orphanage with her. So, naturally, I got on board with that too and help run it as well. It’s the family business. We’ve relocated it to Balamb, and it’s called Ceres’ and Horatio’s Home for Adopted Children. Even though we’re based in Balamb we take children from all over Gard—anyone who’s lost their parents or never knew them in the first place can come and live with us for free, and we look after them and help them find good jobs in society when they leave us. And they do leave us, but they never leave the family. I’m still an adventurer and a sellsword—there have been a few arguments about that—but the difference is that now I do my adventuring and monster hunting in the evenings, or the early mornings, or in little bits here and there were I can fit it in around parenting and my work. The more money I make while doing my adventuring, that I can reinvest in the orphanage and our family, the happier Ceres is. But she’s generally very happy anyway. We’re both very happy. Sometimes I still dream about being the Chosen Hero of Destiny and saving the whole of Gard all by myself. Then I remember and remind myself that I’m just a simple sellsword.

A simple sellsword but, like all of us, one who can still be the hero of my own story.