Miranda froze as the man drew his sword, falling backward into the roses. As she slowly drew her knife, he gingerly moved his sword to her shoulder and brushed off a stray rose petal that had fallen onto it from her stomping around the field. He pushed up his glasses and stared at her.

“You had a petal on your shoulder,” He said, sheathing his sword.

“Uh… thanks?” Miranda responded, completely confused at the bizarre way the conversation was progressing.

“Don’t mention it,” He responded, watching as the rest of the group caught up to Miranda, seemingly just as confused as she was.

“Don’t hurt her!” Alicia shouted, stepping in front of Miranda with a hand on her necklace. She was certain that the man standing before her was a murderer.

“Hm? Oh. I’m not going to.” The man responded, before straightening his posture. None of them had quite realized how tall he was until right this second. The man was, at the bare minimum, seven feet tall. He had exceptionally broad shoulders, though almost everything else about him was completely hidden by his clothes, the shadows, or sunglasses.

“Uh, you’re not?” Alicia asked, keeping her hand on her necklace out of an abundance of caution and attempting to help Miranda up with her other hand.

“No. Why would I do that? That’s stupid.” The man said, adjusting his sunglasses again. “Anyways, have you all seen a monster around here?”

“I don’t think so?” Alicia responded, everyone around her looking just as confused as she was.

“Darn. Well, see you around, then.” The man quietly replied, before starting to wander off. Before he was able to walk away fully, Sean stopped him with his usual jovial yelling.

“Hey, mister!” He shouted, waving his arms around like a lunatic until the unfamiliar figure was forced to look over at Sean. “Where are you heading to? We can help protect you, you know!”

“Oh. Wherever there are people.” He responded, his voice and expression completely deadpan, as it had been the entire time they’d spoken.

“I-” Sean was caught completely off guard by the man’s bizarre response. “D-do you… not know where you’re going? It’s pretty important to have a roadmap, you know.”

“Some people are excellent navigators, Sean,” Jacques chimed in, hoping to ease his husband’s complete and utter confusion.

“Oh, I’m not one of them,” The man said with a laugh. “I’ve been walking around in circles for the past…” He checked his nonexistent watch. “Three weeks.” Jacques was silent for a solid few seconds, before he responded, as eloquently as a human being possibly could;

“Oh,” he said, looking at the man with a gaze of immense concern. The man just shrugged, before Alicia chimed back up in conversation.

“Hey, we’re going on a journey, too,” Alicia quietly mentioned. “Well, if you’re looking for some monster, we’d be happy to escort you to wherever you need to go. Besides, you haven’t been very successful in hunting if you’ve been walking around in circles for three weeks,” Alicia finished and smiled, ignoring the concerned looks from the rest of her group. Then again, she already had four lunatics under her belt, no harm in adding a fifth.

“Oh, ok then. My name’s Sly. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Sly said, stretching out a gloved hand as he walked back over to Alicia. She took it in her grasp and shook it firmly. As she pulled apart, a comment from Miranda almost immediately greeted her.

“Uh… not to be rude, Allie, but should we really take him on? He’s pretty damn odd, don’t you think?” Miranda had a hand on her hip as the man stood behind the duo. Alicia just shrugged in response.

“Well, yeah. Aren’t we all a bit odd, though?” Alicia responded, trying to put Miranda’s woes at ease. It seems as though everyone but her was shaky about their newfound alliance.

“Alright,” Miranda said, proceeding to wander back toward Sean and Jacques. The awkward air was eventually cleared by Sean.

“Well then, it’s getting late, no? Mistwood’s still a little ways away, so why don’t we wander into the forest and make camp? I feel like we’d all do a bit of good with some campfire time.” Sean was beaming, seemingly trying to desperately ease the tension in the room.

“Works for me,” Sly responded, beginning to wander into the forest unprompted. Miranda sighed and shot Alicia a dirty look, beginning to follow after him in a desperate attempt to redirect him onto the right path. Alicia, Jacques, and Sean took a deep breath and wandered into the forest after the duo. Alicia was worried about the new guy who joined the group, but she had a good feeling about him. After all, he hadn’t tried to kill them yet.

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“Alright then, that should be the last of it,” Sean sighed, throwing a hearty log onto an already roaring fire. “That should last us ‘till morning.” They had spent the past hour or so setting up a makeshift camp, and it looked alright, all things considered. As it turned out, Sly was a mastermind when it came to setting up tents, and they’d found a mist-free glade near the forest’s edge and had been spending their time gathering firewood and setting up tents. Of course, they only had the two, but Sly was more than happy to sleep on the ground, it seemed.

“We’ve had an exciting day,” Jacques absentmindedly said, tinkering with a machine he’d been working on. It appeared to be a giant jug of water that could attach to Sean’s back, with tubes leading to his wrists. According to Jacques, it was designed specifically to be used as a projectile weapon, using extremely concentrated bursts of water. Sean’s temperature abilities could very easily rapidly heat it up or rapidly cool it down to ice, making it a rather deadly weapon if used correctly.

“We sure have, dear,” Sean responded, watching whatever it was Jacques was doing with an intense fixation.

“Hey Sly,” Miranda said, leaving Sean and Jacques to their own devices. “Tell me about that monster you’re hunting. I’m bored.” Sly bolted up from the ground at the mention of his name, beginning his story without even being prompted by the others.

“Fifteen years ago… when I was just this high,” he said, moving his hand no more than an inch off the ground. “It came to my home village. I only caught a glimpse of it, but what I saw haunts my dreams to this very day. Its body was the size of a house, and from it spread long tendrils that could easily crush whatever it wanted just by coiling around it. It had lanterns for eyes and teeth sharper than my blade. To make it worse, its whole body was coated in an ink-like substance that left dark footprints in the earth wherever it walked.” Everyone was paying attention to Sly now, even Jacques, who had been hopelessly lost in his tinkering. “Due to that, the people of my village gave it an appropriate name– The Black Ink Monster.” He finally finished and sat down on the ground again, looking on at the horrified expressions of the others. “Well then, bedtime, no?”

“Sly… where did you say you were from, again?” Alicia asked, terrified at the thought of this monstrosity wandering around Eternity. She’d never heard of anything like it, and judging by the faces of those around her, neither had they.

“Hm? Oh. It’s a secret,” Sly responded, before staring at Alicia under his sunglasses. She was beginning to question her choice of teammates, but she knew it was meaningless to second-guess herself at this point. The group was completely silent at this information before Miranda stepped up to clear the air.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“W-well… if we do run into this monster, I’m sure we’ll kick its ass. So we don’t need to worry about it, right?” She was trying to be mature and understanding for once, but it seemed like even she was at a loss for words. Alicia stared into the dancing firelight, before choosing to make polite small talk.

“Hey Sean, where’d you learn to build fires this good? You seem to have a pretty intense understanding of how much wood you need, and all that,” she said, hoping he would take the bait.

“Well, fire-starting comes naturally to me! All I need is my hands, really. As for building fires, Jacques taught me, actually,” Sean responded. He was beaming again, all while Jacques conveniently got distracted by his machines again.

“Jacques taught you, eh?” Miranda asked, a little skeptical.

“Yup! You’d be surprised how much he knows about stuff. He taught me a bunch of stuff I didn’t really know before. Gave me a lot of advice on gardening. Now all my flowers make him cry,” He laughed a bit when he said that, causing Jacques’ face to get a bit red, though it was mostly covered by the firelight.

“Oh, quiet Sean. That was only one time.” Though Jacques’s words were slightly bitter, he had a dumb smile on his face. It was really hard not to smile around Sean.

“Wait, what happened?” Miranda asked. “You can’t just leave us hanging, guys.”

“Oh, just tell them,” Jacques said, playfully rolling his eyes. Sean stood up and began to dramatically retell the story.

“Oh, it was a warm summer day in the little town of Oscis. Sean– that’s me– was tending to his flowers after a rainy night. He pulled on his gloves and began to tend to the rows and rows of flowerbeds he had in his back garden. As he worked on the chrysanthemums, another character stumbled into the story. Why, it’s Jacques! He’d just gotten home from his duties at the church, and he walked out back to find his doting boyfriend– we weren’t yet married– tending to his flowers. He stared at Sean for a few moments, watching him toil away in the garden before tears began to flow from his eyes. Sean stood up, wondering if something was wrong before Jacques quietly embraced him and started to fully cry. The only thing he said as an explanation was, ‘The flowers were so beautiful, I couldn’t stop myself.’” Alicia and Miranda clapped as Sean took several bows for his performance. “Well, now you know,” Sean said, before sitting down beside Jacques, who was laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing.

“You didn’t need to be so dramatic, love,” Jacques said, giving Sean a kiss on the cheek.

“I’m always dramatic! My middle name is dramatic!” Sean responded, making over-the-top hand gestures as he did. Alicia and Miranda were laughing at the two of them, and even Sly was able to get his head out of the ground for long enough to be amused by the conversation. As the group continued to chatter, the firelight slowly began to dwindle, and they retreated into their tents, ready for whatever happened the next day.

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The next morning was busy and chaotic. In just twenty minutes, the camp was down, the fire was out, and the group was back on the road, tearing back through the thick fog surrounding the city. It was gorgeous from a distance, but it was rather obnoxious to actually deal with on foot. It completely stifled vision, clung to clothes like misty burs, and felt like swimming through jelly. In just a few hours, Alicia’s hair was wet, her face was sweaty, and she was absolutely certain she never wanted to crawl through these woods a second time. At least the trees were pretty. After another hour of trekking, they eventually burst from the cloud of mist into a huge clearing, right in the middle of the forest. They were standing in the middle of a giant crop field in which men, women, and children alike were harvesting fruits and vegetables of all different varieties. Alicia sighed as they stepped out into the warm sunshine once again, hoping that she could find a change of clothes in the actual city.

“We made it!” Sean exclaimed, cheering. “If I remember right, these are the crop fields for the Mistwood government. If we keep going straight, we’ll eventually reach the city.”

“Why are there children in the fields?” Sly asked, pointing at a young boy trying to sever a pumpkin from its vine with a little knife.

“It’s the harvest,” Sean replied. “All children are forced to work during the harvest. It ends today, anyhow.” Sly paused for a second, before taking out his blade and slicing the stem of the pumpkin, and looking at the child.

“They shouldn’t be forced to work, regardless of what time of year it is. They’re children, they could get hurt by doing adult tasks,” Sly scoffed and put his sword back in its sheath.

“I-” Sean stuttered, before hanging his head down. “You know… you’re probably right.” Before Sean could even finish, Sly walked across the fields, occasionally helping the working children with their labor.

“You think he’s mad?” Miranda asked. “I mean, kids need to work all over. Alicia and I worked in the church when we were their age. It’s how things have always been.” Alicia paused for a second to watch Sly, thinking about what he had said to Sean.

“Do you remember when I burned my arm when lighting all the candles?” Alicia asked, causing Miranda to get confused. “I couldn’t go outside for a week, it was that bad. Maybe things should change from time to time, Miranda.”

“That’s…” Miranda paused, before looking down at the ground. The trio made the trek towards the city itself in silence after that, seemingly ashamed at partaking in the tradition. Upon reaching the city center, they were almost immediately taken aback by its sheer scale. In Mistwood, it seemed as though they went to great lengths to preserve the naturalistic beauty of their forest. Buildings were housed inside giant trees and crops as large as Alicia’s house. Clear, pure water flowed through the great city, and the towering trees made a pleasant canopy in which they could enjoy the shade the forest provided.

“So this is Mistwood, is it?” Alicia said, looking around. Sean was pointing at various buildings and showing Jacques what they were. Once he was done, he smiled and put his hands on his hips.

“Ah, good to be back in Mistwood again.” He stretched upwards and let sunlight from the canopy pour onto his face.

“You’ve been here before?” Miranda asked.

“I was born here!” Sean exclaimed, laughing again. “Come on, then. Let’s go and look around a bit.” With that, they were off, wandering past little shop stalls and cheerful-looking stores inside giant fruits and vegetables of every variety. After a moment, Alicia and the rest of the gang stopped outside of a store that was set inside what appeared to be a colossal ear of corn. She turned to Sean with a confused expression.

“Sean? Why are we stopping here?” Alicia asked, relatively confused at what was going on. Sean hadn’t given any indication of what was happening, so she was mostly just going with the flow.

“Well, mainly for you two. You need new clothes. The church robes are fine and all, but you look like you’ve been through hell. Which, I guess you have,” Sean put a hand on his chin as he spoke, trying to think of some outfit for the two of them.

“We just feel like you could use some new attire. Something that’d be better suited to a long adventure than your current clothes.” Jacques finished, letting Sean get lost in thought. The group wandered into the clothing store and didn’t walk out until they had tried on just about every single article of clothing they could possibly put on their bodies. Most of it was Sean’s idea. According to Jacques, he had an eye for quality clothes, and Alicia was prone to agree. Upon walking out, Alicia was wearing a rather plain outfit, pants, and a white shirt with frills on the sleeves. Miranda, on the other hand, was wearing mostly black clothing. She was covered in various belts and metals. It suited her personality. As they left, Sly was leaning against a nearby wall.

“Excuse me for the outburst,” He said, before wandering around with the group some more. According to Sean, that morning was the last day of the harvest, so Mistwood would have its famous Harvest Festival once it was completed later that afternoon.

“Sean, what’s the Harvest Festival like?” Miranda asked, playing with one of her many belts.

“Oh, it’s a big party. Everyone dances and eats and plays games. The older folk drink whatever liquor’s been aging since last year. It’s a good time, and lord knows we all need a good time,” Sean commented as he walked, never dropping pace as he spoke. Alicia found it rather impressive.

“Maybe the gods are finally letting us have our day off,” Jacques said, laughing a bit. “What am I saying? There’s no such thing as a day off here.” Sean nodded and continued to lead the group through a winding mess of places until finally reaching a very intimidating-looking building. Unlike everywhere else in the city, this was very much a man-made structure. It looked remarkably similar to the cathedral in Calarina. Alicia paused and looked over at Sean.

“What’s this?” She asked, confused at what was going on.

“Before we can do any fun stuff, we came here for a reason. You’ve gotta power up that soul inside you, remember? This is the place we do it. All you need to do is say you’ve got the Soul of Laius, and they’ll probably let you into the special chamber.” Sean ruffled her hair good-naturedly once he finished. “Don’t worry, kiddo. It’ll be alright. We’ll all be waiting out here for you.”

“What’s going on?” Sly asked, looking up at the intimidating-looking building in front of him.

“We’ll fill you in later, big guy,” Miranda responded, giving him a pat on the back. Alicia slowly walked up to the cathedral’s great doors and looked back at the rest of the group. She wasn’t expecting to be hit with pilgrimage duties this quickly, but she didn’t know what else she’d do when she arrived at Mistwood. The Elder in Oscis had said she had to travel to three places, after all. She took a deep breath and slowly opened the church’s great door, slightly terrified about what was going to happen next.