--------------------------------------
Vexx
I'd hoped that my contractor was dim-witted enough not to see me, as I glanced behind us earlier to see him flying atop the dragon. With Black Knight's brother.
This moment in time filled my headspace as I stood within the questers. We were now standing alongside crowds of Dwellven, inside the caverns of ruined buildings. Hordes of pointy-eared civilians panicked around the dark, mother Cynid, as divisions of their soldiers tried to attack while it smashed through structures.
Even Chronicle Order troops with us were sent to fight the creature, by the command of our headmaster leading the front.
Basically? A cluttered mix of fiery spells engulfing other elemental magic.
". . .this was partially our doing." I overheard Thorne continuing his explanation to Headmaster Chronisius. In a low but desperate tone of voice."The fight club tamed and kept the resurrected beasts. Enraging their guardian."
My mouth reactively opened in offense. I spread my wings and flew over to the two. Fully iron-armoured as always, so one always thinks I'm your typical Flivian.
"You sure it's our doing?" I appeared. "You said you led the cave-fighting, might I add."
"Fine. My doing." He grunted without keeping an eye away from the leader"It's just. . . there was peace down there. Compared to the surface."
Then the kid laid the red axe, attached to his back, onto the ground, and removed his bronze crown to hold it against his chest. All as he kneeled down.
"I deeply apologize, Headmaster Chronisius. I did not mean for danger to occur."
The white-haired human rested both hands behind his back.
"Hm. I understand, prince Thorne." His robed headmaster remained serious above him. "However, heroes, or questers like you, are never to keep secrets beneath what the eye can see. Understand that?"
Well, too late for that if I'm a quester.
"It shall never happen again, Headmaster Chronisius." Thorne continued with his head down.
"Hope so."
The headmaster simply replied, staring off into the growing battle of Dwellven-kind and the order, against this one reanimated being.
"Now I feel as though Niytri and the people call us, to take down that monster. I've already dispatched men to retrieve missing members. I'm sure the Drownei would've survived."
So he gestured a hand to us, sweeping it towards himself."For now, we shall move in to attack with our remaining soldiers. Onward!"
We began to follow, as per usual, while I was about to leap into the air for flight.
Then I found myself stopping for some reason, when I heard the familiar voice of a child sniff and clear her throat.
Thorne's sister, Jade, stood with a palm rubbing against her arm. Her little pointy-nosed head turned back towards where her idol fell. The piles of brick and wood rubble, where the tavern once stood, now swallowed by the ground like the many surrounding areas of Mythin Caverns.
Glancing at our division as they headed off, I sighed as I decided to catch her attention.
"Hey. Uh- Jade." I spoke without moving an inch towards her. "Hear all that? We got to go save people and whatnot."
She gazed downwards. Eyes narrowed in some sad way.
"I promised my family I was a hero." The 'wizard' responded without meeting my confused stare. "And I couldn't even save one person."
All this drama. I thought, barely suppressing the temptation to roll my eyes at a twelve-year-old. It doesn't get you anywhere.
"If your 'hero' is as good as they say, she survived." I said, somehow feeling the need to comfort a child standing alone. "Actions speak louder than words. You tried a lot already."
Then, before she could look at me to answer my unexpected response, I lifted off the surface like I planned and soared towards the mother Cynid.
The arachnid of misty aura in the distance was surrounded at all fronts. But it deflected each clump of boulders and flaming projectiles from our armies, along with whatever spell they could come up with. Angrily slapping them using its legs, similiar to swatting a bunch of pesky bugs.
It casually crawled around town, digging into the smaller homes and rock walls supposedly for its children, with a singular beady black eye seeing all. And its ten legs boosting the creature's speed. Despite soldiers using a flood of water to slow it down.
I charged straight for the huge target, anyway. Raising my flintlock from the holster, while some of our troops leaped up with their swords and spears, material shining a bright white.
From its two-fanged mouth, the fuzzy creature shot another array of webs as they aimed for the eye. I immediately could tell that the troops attempted weapons infused with air magic, or Flivian 'Diand' magic, or whatever people called it nowadays.
I spun out of the way in the air, narrowly avoiding a clump of sticky webbing hurdling at me. In the edge of my vision, the headmaster lead charge as expected on the ground, while Thorne swung his tall axe at the Cynid's legs.
It growled at me specifically as I continued shooting. Bullets from my rusty old flintlock struggled to pierce its body. Even if they were infused with air magic for swiftness. There seemed to be a shell underneath all that fur.
As I played the part of the annoying distraction, the spider crawled out of all our crossfire, and climbed up to the cave ceilings in rapid motion.
Thorne was hanging onto one of the legs, with his axe lodged into it. Suddenly dangling from the Cynid.
All the Dwellvens spectating and within battle looked up. Sharing murmurs of their future prince's boldness. I backed away mid-air, reacting to the sudden predicament.
And the weapon of the crowned kid slipped off.
He spiralled downwards with a hand gripped onto his bronze circlet, and another gripped onto his flaming melee.
For a second there, I witnessed fright on his sharp-nosed face. Like he was actually scared to lose his fabricated hero life.
Before anyone else could attempt to save him, either knocked down or badly injured, a single shimmer echoed throughout the cavern.
His tall body stuttered in place, in the middle of falling. A blinding shine of thick cloud formed around him.
It was just enough time for Dwellven soldiers to head underneath him, stretching their arms out to catch the heir.
Then the bright aura around him flickered. And disappeared completely. Struggling to stay active.
Thorne was safely caught by a few Dwarf-likes of his army, just a couple dozen heads away from reaching them.
The Cynid, weirdly, froze too. Except not from some obvious visibly coloured magic.
Instead, it peered to the distance, distracted by a more apparently important sight.
But before anyone could notice or glance towards where they looked, a different presence, little but bold, stepped out from our armies.
The wizard girl Jade had her scepter raised to Thorne's direction. Approaching with a determined glint in her eyes. She adjusted her pointy hat and purple shortdress, both grimed again after our extra clothes were rinsed, at 'Mythin's Tavern'.
Made me wonder what happened to Finber.
Oh well. He was probably looking for an excuse to run out, anyway.
Jade's spellcasting weapon glistened a hint of white, the fading mist around it completely vanishing. It was clear that she was the one to lighten her brother's fall.
"Well, I will be quite damned." He gave a single pat on his sister's shoulder, while the witnessing troops cheered shortly for both of their boldness. "Good save, Jade."
"Rare nice thing for you to say, Thorne." She answered with a proud smile, noticing me watching the situation in the air, and giving me a cheery light nod, while I watched another armed Dwellven crowd already joining from afar.
After they positioned their chariots and horse carriers nearby, our soldiers of the same kind moved themselves to make way. For a single person in particular.
"I'm proud of my two heroes."
The siblings' father, and their people's revolution leader, stepped in between his children. With his robes of dark red, and long braided hair fitted under a silver circlet.
"Don't worry yourselves, I saw everything." Seifer happily embraced his kids, then spoke serious as my eyes darted away from them."But this isn't over yet."
Soon enough, by him and the headmaster's orders, our weapons were raised to finish off the Cynid without hesitation.
Then, yet another familiar voice shouted.
"Wait! Cease fire!"
And the arachnid creature tilted its head, attention caught like us, at the noise.
Actually, noises.
Hordes of light screeches echoed through the settlement tunnels. Similiar to the beast itself, except tinier.
Sure enough, I flew down to the surface to see Black Knight and Aziel, both riding Cynids. An entire herd of the beasts followed from underground.
Our iron-armoured troops led with the questers, along with various Dwellven civilians. All mounted onto the dark summoned monsters and crawling to where we stood.
The headmaster's face lit up in pride. "Now would you look at that? Both of them alive."
I couldn't help but stare, myself. A Human and a Drownei working together. . . not one of them dying to the other? I guess the biggest egos cancel out when they clash.
"The questers have returned!" Headmaster Chronisius announced. "Thank you, my soldiers."
We all watched as the mother Cynid carried itself downwards, using a thick string of webs from its fanged mouth to land on the ground.
Suddenly, the growls of the multiple, furry arachnid children turned into purrs, as they collectively rushed over to their guardian the moment she was seen. Shaking off the different people riding on top of them.
The Cynids zipped past us and huddled close around the parent. Then after all of them climbed up its two-story body to mount, the huge inky spider shot one last stare at us, mist swirling around the beady black eye from the bloodstone.
And so it crawled peacefully towards the early blue morning. Towards the tunnel opening of Mythin Cavern's exit, passing by hidden Dwellvens and village structures, without another hostile sound.
"Follow the monsters quietly and closely." I saw Seifer with a finger stroking his chin, telling his soldiers. "Just in case it decides to stay near another settlement."
The Dwellven troops of varying statures took the order. Hopping into their carriers, while every other witness cheered once more for us 'heroes'. Groups of armoured men and townsfolk, praising our deeds, chanting mainly the same things in common tongue.
"Praise be Niytri and their prophesied warriors! Long live the Headmaster!"
Aziel helped the heavy Black Knight off the dirt floor. Jade ran to greet her, basking beside the center of the headmaster's glory, with the grateful population surrounding him.
Meanwhile, I turned my head behind me.
At the sound of someone gasping for air and moving away rocks.
I raised the brows of my bluish eyes in surprise, when I noticed the man with pointed ears, with wavy hair covering his eyeballs as he now wore a sooted apron.
It took me a few seconds to realize it was Finber. Who had just escaped from underneath.
He looked around him, and back towards the ruined tavern he worked in, since as far as I barely knew the guy.
But then I saw his bored eyeballs widen. And he expressed more emotion than ever before in that moment. For the first time probably ever, Finber grew the exact opposite of a frown.
"I'm. . . free." The Dwellven glanced all over him with a beam, hurrying to remove his brown worker outfit, and hurling it to the ground.
"I'M FREE!"
He ran off the opposite direction to escape the caves.
And I swear, underneath all the exclamations in his language, I heard joyous laughter trailing away before he faded from view.
I admit, it pulled a chuckle out of me. Until another light laugh distracted me, and I faced Thorne who was also watching behind.
Then the kid's reaction turned into seriousness as he looked to me.
". . .I appreciate what you did down there, by the way."
Hesitantly, I gave him a nod as my response.
"Ah, shucks, it was the least I could do after finding out what 'dwelled' underground."
"Your jokes are still terrible."
"Think I'm making them good for you?"
He crossed his arms with a tiny smirk.
Then his father approached us before we could realize he was listening.
"Next time, Thorne, you should inform me of any secret clubs going on. Even if I knew already." The red-robed Seifer scolded him gently. "So what might dwell underground could be taken care of."
The prince raised an eyebrow in shock for a second, but shook it off. "You knew??"
"Of course I did. When hundreds of people attend cave fighting daily, word tends to get out."
Thorne kept his mouth completely shut. Staring downwards in regret, until he met his parent's gaze. "I'm sorry, father. I let you down. I understand those activities were banned since the Dwellven unionization"
Then he had a frown that turned back to neutral.
"But. . . everyone was so in peace with one another. It's chaos outside."
Seifer stood silent for a moment. Giving his son a light understand nod and smile. And eventually, he just sighed.
"The only reason cave fighting was banned was because, well, Dwarvens deemed it too undignified. They were the strong, strict, and orderly ones constructing everything, after all. Elvens were quite attuned to fights, though, and taming wild animals."
In the corner of my vision, Thorne's sight shifted beyond him in thought. "I see."
"Tell you what."
The father finally said like he was prepared.
"I may bring it back, if you're able to lead one in the future."
Thorne stood up straight after hearing that. Raising both bushy eyebrows.
"Yes!" Then he promptly cleared his throat, after reacting too much. "I mean, thank you, father, you won't regret this. When do we start?"
"Well, first, you'll need to hold your horses and finish the prophecy." He chuckled.
Yeah, right, the oddly undetailed prophecy.
I might've wanted to add on, until realizing how much they would hate me for doing so. And the fact that I, obviously, wasn't part of the family discussion.
Not that I fully knew what a 'family discussion' meant.
Must be nice.
After Headmaster Chronisius re-explained the plan of meeting another quester, or apparently a batch of them, at some shoreline for ship docking, we headed off to our carriages still intact and nearby.
A mostly proud Seifer hugged both of Jade and Thorne once more, wishing them and everyone else some luck as he would stay to deal with damages.
I was about to fly inside one of the carriers. Until I felt a soft palm on my shoulder.
"Thorne told me you saved his life, eh?"
The father wore his slightly wrinkled smile again.
"Thanks for that. As figurehead of the Dwellven, you shall be welcome to stay in our kingdom anytime, Vexx."
My orphan hybrid self couldn't help but be surprised at this, to the point of near silence.
"Huh. That's a new one." I answered truthfully. "Thanks, I suppose."
So the quest continued. And we journeyed off, as from within the vehicle, I stared at the curtains that covered the outer world.
All those previous moments in time filled my headspace, for at least more than the usual second.