Darius awoke to a bright light in his eyes, “Iroh, heal me. My head hurts, but it looks like I’m still alive, so at least we got through that safely.”
“Finally waking up, are we?”
It was the infirmary and next to Darius laid Gordan and Ricardo still unconscious. One of their beds neatly wrapped him while he slept calmly, while the other was a mess from him turning in his sleep too much. Fairly easy to guess which is which.
“You woke up first? I had 5 silver on Gordon, damn it.”
The person who spoke to him was Doctor Adrian Winters, they were very tall, nearly as tall as Darius was, had short, blonde hair, fair skin, and an equal balance of masculine and effeminate features. Darius has only had the pleasure of speaking with them on rare occasion we, and from a glance it was impossible to tell if they were a woman or a man. Even when asked which, they’d merely respond that they didn’t care.
“Yep, and I still feel like dirt, but other than that I’m fine, thanks for asking. Care to fill me in on what happened after the Contusis?”
They stopped writing in their notebook to fill Darius in, “Honestly, I don’t know what to tell you, I was up there like everyone else, but I really can’t comprehend what I saw. The air around you glowed with a yellow color, and the wave that was going to fall on us split and disappeared, then skies became clear as the storm literally vanished in nearly an instant. Your iris also held the same color for a while after you passed out. As a person of science, I have no idea what could have caused that to happen.”
“Looks like Gramps was right, magic really does exist, I wonder how it works,” Darius thought as he painfully rubbed his head. “Thanks Doc, where is everybody else?”
She took a long look at Darius and raised an eyebrow, “Where do you think? Drinking. Only reason I’m here was to watch out for you. We saw land not too long ago, but you three have been asleep about a week now, so they decided to celebrate without you. Go ahead, the celebration is mostly for you, anyway.”
Inside the ship’s dining hall, it was chaos, the smell of booze everywhere, crewmates singing and fighting, Killian was even dancing with nothing but his pants and hat while guzzling down booze from a bucket.
“Now this is a celebration!” However, once a few from the crew noticed Darius they start to stop their drinking, the music quiets into silence, and the crowd gathered around him.
“Um, good job on not dying.” Really, that was the best he could think of. Killian walked through the crowd until he stood right before Darius. “We did it Killian! We conquered the Contusis, even if we did have a little help,”
Killain remained silent but raised his hand into a fist, “I can tell where this is going. I assume this is for headbutting you… twice,” Darius lamented. His prediction came true as Killian gave him one right across the cheek. Not a pleasant feeling.
“And this is for saving us all” Killian gave his hand to Darius, but when he took it, the rest of the crew joined in. Turning a hearty handshake into lifting Darius off his feet.
“Darius! Darius! Darius!”
“This… this is a good feeling.”
The trip onto land took an extra few hours as they couldn’t find any ports. Seemed that there were no signs of other humans, or at least civilized humans in the area. “Alright Killian, I see plains behind that beach in that area to the north, we should dock there and survey the area, we might find that people are just further inland.
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“I’m finally here, after all that struggling, I’m finally here.”
“Darius did he not… the Don is a real bastard.” Killian grabbed onto the side of the boat hard enough to draw blood, “Darius, we can’t stay here, we have to go back as soon as we dropped you off. I thought you had some plan for when you got to the island.”
“I bet Charles thought we wouldn’t even make it through the Torrential Seas, and that we would have to turn back. He probably did that to make sure Killian’s crew came back with me aboard.”
“Darius, the Don, I owe him too much, and you know how he is. If I don’t do what he says…” Killian couldn’t look Darius in the face and hit the ship, “After you saved all our lives.”
Darius couldn’t help but laugh, “Look at you Killian, “Mr. Man Who Conquered the Torrential Seas,” being put down at something like this. I bet the Don didn’t even believe we would make it through, but we proved him wrong, we showed him up. I’ll be fine, you know how capable I am. A year, how about that, in a year you come back here to take me back to Journey, it should only take me about that long to get the help I need.”
Killian took a second before holding out an arm to Darius, “Alright in a year me and my crew will be back to take you and your “help” to Journey, and as a true friend I’ll even put a discount on the travel cost for you.”
“I guess that’s about as good as it gets,” Darius joked as he took his friends arm in his own, “Then it’s a promise Killian.”
“Be safe out there Darius.”
“Stupid Kent, forcing me to row all the way to land, so what if the water might be too shallow, having to row two miles all by myself, I’ll get him for this.”
The Lion Khanum’s Blade was only a speck in the distance at this point, already feeling like a distant memory. “Feels good to finally get my feet on land again, a month at sea really gets to you.”
After landing on the beach Darius did a checkup of everything he had on him, “Weapons: a dagger, ten throwing knives, and my bow? Arrows? 20. Clothes: shirts, pants, and my cloak. Gadget pack? Got my paint bombs, disguise kit, firecrackers, matchsticks, and a compass; maybe I should have kept the staff.”
Darius groaned over the fact that Killian and his crew would need the staff far more in case they came across the Contusis again. Darius was still interested in learning how the magic worked and just how much more it could serve him.
“So, no food, no way to get in contact with others, and no friends to back me up. Looks like I’m back to how I was before getting to Sheildon, well minus Gramps.” Darius said to no one in particular. “This might actually be the first time I was ever completely alone, this… this is not a good feeling.”
The plains around here were normal, grass everywhere, a rabbit burrowing into a hole, a bird that was on fire... That last thing didn’t quite seem right.
Darius was right, flying through the air was a large, hawklike bird. With feathers colored red and a deep yellow, it stood out against the blue of the sky. Though even more noticeable were the smoke trails it left behind as it was nonchalantly engulfed in flames.
“That bird, I’m pretty sure they don’t spontaneously combust like that. I may be on a mission, but there’s no way I could just ignore this. I mean, it’s only necessary that I scope out what type of wildlife lives in the area, it’s only natural that I would need to know.”
Blazing through the forest, Darius had to sprint to keep the firebird in sight. Their chase concluded at a creek, where the firebird took a drink of water.
“So even if it can light itself on fire, it still needs water.”
The creek was a simple stream that had about three maybe four feet of water, overlooked by a cliffside about 10 or 15 feet higher. As far as Darius was concerned, there was nothing in the area, but the firebird went alert. Sensing some kind of danger, it took off.
“That’s a sign if I ever saw one, could be a predator lurking in the shadows?”
Almost as if it was waiting for someone to acknowledge it’s presence, the unknown force shrieked, bringing Darius to his knees. “My ear! Damn, I think its bleeding.” Warm blood flowed easily from his ears onto his hand.
“Is it usable? Hello, Hello!” He couldn’t hear from his right ear, but his left fine. Darius would have to worry about permanent damage later, right now, he had a much bigger thing to worry about.