Last Fantasy was beautiful, a beach side town that had a harbor, some large boats, some small. The town was lively and had wonderful fresh fish for sale as well as beautiful sit down restaurants and bars for all the sailors that were in town, as well as a large Inn. The town didn't have a residential area, it was more a stopping point for those traveling, though many agreed, they wished they could live in this beautiful town. The group wondered around, looking for someone to sale them across the sea but it was no luck, everyone was docked and not planning to leave. Rumor had it that the seas were no longer safe to travel and many of the people were worried of losing their livelihood as they were unable to continue telling and shipping, which explained why Peddle Town was so quiet for a trade town.
No one seemed to know just what was stopping all the sailors, just that many ships had gone missing and large storms kept the sea wild outside the harbor. This put a real wrench in the groups plans as they needed to get across the sea and away from the Legion, they had to find someone who was willing to travel no matter what. They decided to head to the Inn and stay the night and look the next day, as they entered they saw a familiar face.
"Ana? What are you doing here?" Arts voice cracked with joy at seeing her and Meekle pushed him forward so he could chat with her and find out.
"We'll get the room, let us know what happens." The rest of the group walked by and got their room, leaving Art and Ana there together. She greeted him with a warm smile.
"Hey there Art, well I came here after I left you all. I tried to go back to Crystalis but it had been taken over by the Legion." Her warm smile fading, she tried to keep her lips curled up but they fell quickly to the thought. "Anyways, what are you doing here?"
"Oh, well I, I mean we are trying to get across the sea to get away from the Legion ourselves."
"Yeah, that was my thought but its been a bit tough to find anyone, I guess there is something going on out there. But I think I may have found just the people crazy enough to take me, if you and the others would like to join me? We leave in the morning."
"That would be great, I don't know how to thank you Ana." She leaned over to him and gave him a peck on the cheek.
"There, debt settled. I will see you in the morning, make sure to meet me at the docks when you all wake up." She waved and headed off to one of the rooms and he turned to go find the rest of the group, he immediately found Meekle, Fenix and Tophuu all peaking out at him from a cracked open door. His head quickly fell and his face turned red as it could as he walked over to the door.
After five minutes of heckling and teasing they finally let it go and asked what she said, part of him wanted to lie and surprise them with it in the morning for all the teasing they put him through, but he couldn't help it and cracked, telling them all about having a way across the sea.
"That's great Art, now we just have to figure out what it is that is out there." Vixen was already trying to think two steps ahead. They all gave her a questioning look, "If everyone is afraid the best bet is we are going to run into what ever is out there."
"I mean, isn't it just a bad storm?" Tophuu stretched out, wanting to sleep as much as he could before they had to get up.
"It's not so simple as that, with the fact that it has docked everyone and people have gone missing states that there is a larger factor than just a simple storm." Fenix crossed his arms and his head fell to the side as he got lost in thought.
"True, we need to remember this is a video game, the best guess would be some kind of monster or maybe a ghost ship, those were big things to deal with when trying to find you ship in games." Art grabbed Fenix by the shoulders and shook him, "You got a plan man?"
"Well, even though we changed things, we have still been on the path of the video game. Ana is a big clue to this, she was here to help us find a boat, that means what ever happens on the boat will most likely lead us to a next point, weather that is a monster or ghost shop, who really knows. But I think as long as we are ready for the fight, it should all go according to plan and we will get across safe." He made a lot of good points and they decided to turn in for the night.
The next morning they headed to the harbor to find Ana waiting for them, a bright smile over her face and waving her hand in the air at them, the sun wasn't even fully out and the area was covered in a light mist as they made their way to her.
"Come on, our ship is over here." She said as she headed down the docks, they passed ship after ship, all of them very nice and they couldn't wait to see what they were getting, finally they passed a large boat that brought theirs into view, it was much older and a bit rickety, the banner that flew on it had a large skull with a hat on it and all of then had a shiver go down their spine.
"Ana, is that a pirate ship?" Art's voice monotone and stale as he looked at the molding underside of it. She didn't say a word as she started up the plank onto the boat.
"Art, next time find out before hand if we are sailing on a pirate ship or not." Vixen quietly scolded him as they slowly but surely followed Ana onto the ship, only to be met with a large group of sketchy looking people, all of them a bit dirty and smelly, with bandannas tied around their heads in every way imaginable. The only one that didn't look messy or dirty was the one they all assumed had to be the captain, he stood tall at six foot four and had a lovely red coat that fell to his black boots, a scowled face and clean beard, a scar crossing over his nose. His cloths were much cleaner than the rest as well, with a black button up shirt and black leather pants and two swords at his hip. But what got them all a bit more nervous about him were his cold gray eyes.
"Come on guys, don't just stair at them, get on." Ana didn't seem the least bit nervous about this and so they joined them and introduced themselves one by one and what happened next shocked them all.
"Ahh, those are wonderful names and look at you all, you are all so cute, Razah I love the hair." The captain laid in complement after complement, his hands coming together against his cheek and his left leg lifting and waging in the air as he made dough eyes at all of them. It was a bit creepy but it was better than what they thought it was going to be like, the crew all greeted them as well but the captain never stopped.
"Ah, it is great to meet some of Miss Ana's friends. You are seem delightful. How rude of me, I am Captain Vincent McCloud." He gave them a bow, pulling his hat off as he did so, revealing his beautiful white hair that messily fell to his eyes. "Welcome to my ship." Art and Fenix both had a confused face as they looked at each other, thinking about the name of the town along with the captains name and laughed a bit.
"I hope they don't think that his attitude fits either of them." Art keeping his voice low enough that only Fenix could hear him. Fenix quickly agreed, his head shaking as the palm of his hand moved over his face to keep from laughing.
They all settled in and found that they were charged with keeping the ship clean and helping out where ever anyone needed a hand, this was the payment asked of them all, except for Ana who got to stay comfy in the Captains room as a personal guest. Art and Meekle were stuck with cleaning the floors, while Fenix and Vixen were asked to help in the kitchen and Razah and Tophuu were asked to help with sailing. It seemed well worth it for a free trip and kept them all busy, but it wasn't long before they hit the storms and all of them had to work double time in helping out. The ship was taking on large amounts of water and half of them helped scoop it out while the others helped keep everything else under control and keep count of all the shipmates.
The ship was getting tossed around and got to the point where all of them had to be tied down to make sure they didn't lose anyone. The storm became much worse than any of them thought but soon it came to a calm, all around them they could see the storm but this had to be the eye of it as it seemed peaceful for a moment, till they saw the large shadow coming up from the depths of the ocean. Soon the shadow covered all the water under their ship and they had no place to go as the jaws of a giant beast came up all around them and they were sucked into the throat of what ever it was. The giant beast came up over the water, showing to be a giant whale dragon, a rare beast that most never lived to talk about, most thought of them as myth in this world, its skin was slick and a beautiful white, with ancient markings all over it in gold. It shared similarities with the sperm whale, aside from the large bone like horns that protruded its face, its long wings that made it move quickly through the water and its extremely long body. Though a rare creature to see, it was a true ruler of the seas.
The group found themselves in the belly of this beast, the ship stuck in what was like a junkyard full of ships, as far as the eye could see. They were all dazed and confused as they got up and looked around, trying to find everyone and make sure they were safe, or as safe as they could be in this situation.
"We need to find a way out of here, if there is any." Fenix looked out through the sea of ships and wondered why it was doing such a thing.
"Yeah, well its not like we can just climb out of its mouth. Even if we could, we would end up at the bottom of the ocean and that wouldn't do us any better." Meekle's voice showing his panic of the situation.
"We need to calm down guys, panicking isn't going to get us anywhere." Razah giving words of wisdom to her team as she helped one of the grew mates up out from under planks of wood.
"She is right, we might need to just go explore and see what we can find." Art seemed to have some thoughts on this place, "If it is part of the game, we might just have to complete something else." They argued a bit more but finally decided that Art had the best plan so far. Ana and the rest were thankful they were there and decided to wait for them at the ship.
"If you need anything let us know, we don't have much but there are some items we can do trades and sales for here on the ship." She gave a warm smile as a send off, as did the captain of the ship.
They made their way over to another ship finding that they were quickly cut off from the next one as it was stuck on its side, they made their way down into the ship and started looking around before they were attacked by some ghosts that looked to once be sailors or pirates. Razah was their heavy hitter against these guys as her light magic some how double as holy type magic that did great damage to them. They got rid of them pretty quick and started feeling better and better about themselves and their skills, they had dealt with two dungeons and were doing well against field monsters. As they looked around they found some chests, mostly basic items, like potions and some gold. As they got lower into this ship they found that it was broken open and lead through the ship that was blocking them and into another. They started making their way through and checking the rooms, dealing with any of the ghost monsters that showed up. When they got to one room, that looked like it was once very nice and fancy they found a single chest inside.
With how nice the room was they thought they had to find something pretty great inside of it and quickly opened it to find it was another mimic. This one had a long tongue that shot out at Razah and hit her with some pretty big damage, they were all shocked and quickly defended as it's tongue shot around at all of them before going back into the chest.
"Damn, another one." Art rushed it with a sword sweep that knocked it into the air, "Rising Strike." He hit it with full force and Fenix rushed in to combo it. His feet changed to two large hoofs and he had horns growing from his head now.
"Falling Star." His feet met the mimic and shot it to the ground where Vixen opened fire on it. Four arrows stuck into it made quick explosions making the box bounce around.
"This one is taking a lot more than the first one did." Vixen readied more burst arrows as Meekle rushed in with his cursed claws and started slashing at the mimic. Once he jumped back Razah hit it with her small sun attack, comboing with Vixen's burst arrows. The mimic started cracking at the edges and little tentacles came out of each one and shot at them just like the tongue, hitting all of them from the surprise attack and then using those tentacles to move around and attack with.
"These things are almost as tough as the boss fights." Tophuu summoned his ShellBoar that knocked the mimic out of the air and proceeded to stomp on it. They all attacked as quickly as they could, trying not to give it a chance to attack again, none of them stopping to heal up, even with some of them reaching lower health, they continued and Razah started casting her sun shine spell to help heal them up and to small damage to the monster. After a rough battle with this that took them longer than they expected it fell over with a large amount of gold just like the last one.
"I hate those things." Meekle said with a shiver.
"Me too, they are so creepy, even if they give good gold, I didn't expected to just see another one of them." Razah started downing a potion, sense her light spell can't heal her directly. They took a short rest and headed back into the hall and started climbing up, fighting ghost after ghost till they got to the deck of the ship. They were then met with a group of ghouls that attacked them quickly, scratching at Tophuu's arm and leaving a green mark that made him sick.
"Poison again, I am so over this stuff." Tophuu's pet jumped in front of him to protect him while he searched his bag for a antidote but as he drank it down he realized it didn't do anything. "Hey, what is this. Guy's it wont go away." A grumbling noise coming from his mouth as he said it. He started slowly turning green all over and then lashed out, attacking Vixen who was closest to him at the time.
"What are you doing Tophuu." She looked over and saw he looked just like the ghouls around the ship, "Hey, guys. I think we have a problem." She started running trying to keep her distance, thankfully the way he was dressed made him stand apart from the rest of them.
"Don't let them cut you, it's a Zombie effect." Fenix warned them all as they continued fighting, ridding themselves of the Ghouls one by one, aside from Tophuu. After all of them were a pile of digital blocks they all tried to figure out what to do about Tophu as he confusingly swung and clawed at each one of them.
"I have an idea, stay here." Art ran back down into the ship, all of them confused as they called out, they didn't have much choice but to bate Tophuu around the top of the ship while they waited for Art to get back. It took a bit but he finally came back up with a little sack with a fuse handing from it. "Alright, stand back." He lit it and tossed it at Tophuu's feet and the smoke filled the air. As it cleared up Tophuu was normal again and they all questioned Art on how he was able to do that. "I went back to the ship, remember Ana said they had some items. I bought a few for each of us, so hold on to them." He handed them around making sure they were all covered just in case. These small smoke bombs were know as Zombie purification bombs or Z.P.B for short.
Tophuu thanked Art and the others and they headed across the deck of the ship and onto another one, dealing with each and every monster till they came to a dead end with a treasure chest. They were all a bit nervous but agreed they should open it, then pushing Art forward to do it, his lips puckered and his glared back at them as they laughed a bit. When he opened the chest there was a single item in it, a Dadao sword named Ghost Blade. Art held it up in excitement as he showed off his new found sword, the others were a bit disappointed but still it was a good find for him as he quickly put it on. They headed back out of the dead end and found another path at the side of the boat, they crossed over a small plank and went onto the deck of the new ship and started their search, looking for other things they could get as well as some hint or sign as to how to get out of this monster's belly.
They saw no reason to rush it, for once they took their time heading through the monster, though they were within this beast they weren't being chased at the moment or feeling the pressure of everything else. This was a chance for them to enjoy it and they found that each of the ships was a bit different, old yes, but with different designs and types of things inside of them. So they went through, hunting for any kind of items that could be of use, finding another chest in a room this time they played a game of rock, paper, scissors to see who would have to open it, Tophuu lost and went over to the chest and opened it, it was an odd find as he pulled out a whip from the chest and looked around.
"What is this for?" He asked looking around, seeing none of them had this type of weapon. "Hey, wait, it says I can equipped this." Excitement in his voice as he added it into his inventory and had it added, giving him a better control of monsters, this made his states jump high and gave him the ability to catch larger monsters than he already could. "Awesome, now I can really help fight and not just stand back or do small chipping damage."
The group was excited for him, even Art, though he was a bit sad they didn't act that happy for him, still it was a great find. Though out the ships they also found the King's Rod for Razah, upping her magical damage as well as a new robe that gave her more defense, they found a old lantern that was for Meekle, called the Monster's Light, this strengthened his curse abilities, making them last longer and made his self curse ability stronger. Fenix found a set of Knuckles, Beast Claw and gave him more strength with each hit and a Bow that upped Vixen's speed with each shot. The ship graveyard was full of things for them, as if it was getting them ready for the next part of the game, though, this did not cross their minds.
Soon they came made it to the edge of all the ships where a little island that came up and led deeper into the monsters stomach. A hole in the wall of the beast opened and closed as they made their way through it, a look of disgust on all their faces and a few of them wanted to throw up after coming through. They found themselves in a large open area of the stomach, a large piece of the monster stuck out of the floor and attacked to it was a large kraken like monster, his suction cups stuck to the inside of the beast stomach feeding off of it, inside each suction up was a needle that stuck into the Whale Dragon. This Vampire Kraken was feeding off of it and when it saw them it lashed out one of its long limbs hitting all of them and knocking them back.
"Well, I guess this is why we got swallowed?" Art shrugged, hoping this was the answer they were looking for. Fenix rushed in, the fastest of them all and dodge the whipping of its appendages to start striking it, his damage count much more than it was earlier without the knuckles, but he was soon thrown back by it. Art coming in right behind him and swinging his new sword, the monster defended with its tentacles but Arts sword went right through them and hit the monster, it seemed that defense didn't work against the Ghost Blade. He continued using skills on it. Tophu called forth the Skull Mutt, which was much larger than it was before, it seems his boost gave his monster friends one as well, he ran in riding a top it and started using his new whip to lash the Vampire Kraken, while his Skull Mutt attack, clawing and biting at it. Vixen shot exploding arrows with a quickness she never had, piercing each one into the long arms of the monster. As they exploded the monster finally let go and started moving about the Whale Dragon, knocking them all down as it ran through them before it latched on to Meekle and Razah for a moment and drained them, giving it a slight heal to its health, while taking from theirs. Fenix quickly knocked it off of them and they now had to fight this beast as it moved about. Razah started on a new spell while Meekle did a full party curse for defense and then cursed the kraken with a Slow Effect, making it easier for them to catch up and do damage, having to do this over and over to slow it he was unable to do his own curse to fight. Once he cursed himself he was unable to do any other curses till it wore off.
The monster got free from the slow and before Meekle could set it again the monster grabbed all but Razah that was out of his range and started draining them, healing the damage they just did. Razah panicked and started saying her spell quicker.
"Thoth, hear my wish and come forth with all your knowledge and power, bend reality to your will. Strike this beast before me with your might and let it know that you are the one who knows all. Master of physical and divine law, reality is yours to command and I ask that you let loose your power on this beast before me." Suddenly black lines formed around the beast and the area within grew dark, changing and morphing the reality within it. The tentacles outside of the box being broken off and letting the others go free as the square formed around it more and more and everything went dark. It shrank, small and smaller till it disappeared, leaving the Vampire Kraken to fall on the floor and take a good chunk of damage, it was left dazed as it didn't move.
Vixen took this chance, "Falling Star." She said as she shot an arrow that turned into a raging star fell towards the monster, hitting it and draining the rest of its health away. Digitizing and fading away they could hear a screeching noise from the Whale Dragon that they hoped was joy. They planned on making their way back but just as they left that room they were sucked up into the air and shot out a blow hole at the rough of the beast, they hung in the air for a moment before landing on its back. In front of them they could see the ship that they went in on, floating on the surface of the sea and everyone waving at them, the beast had freed them all as thanks for helping it with the Vampire Kraken.
They got on the boat and before the Whale Dragon left he flung an item up to the group, it was a, it was a blow horn that looked and matched the designs of the Whale Dragon and looked a lot like one of the horns it had on its head. An item description popped up stating that they could blow this to summon the creature if they needed to once again cross the ocean. It was a shocking turn of events but they were happy to take it just in case they ever needed it. The thought scared some of them but Art and Tophuu were pretty excited about it, Art because he liked dragons and Tophuu because he liked weird creatures.
They had a quite trip the rest of the way there, getting to rest for the next day or so after before they were asked to start helping out around the ship again. It took two more days for them to see the new city in the distance, known as the Island of Mana, it was the shortest land mass in this area and was the docking point for all, the whole island was one big city and the rest of the area were other large land masses that stood hire than any mountain. They had to use transport magic to get to them.
Once they docked they said goodbye to Ana, Art being the butt of the joke once again as they all left, even though he did nothing to make fun of. They looked around the stores and got some new armor and items to help out, as well replenishing their potions. There was much to see as the city was made around the nature of the island, so there were trees everywhere, accenting all the buildings and houses in the area. In the center of town was a large castle structure that stood out more than the rest, even within the grounds of its walls the forest was free to grow and spread, keeping that natural look of the island made it a lovely sight and one of the largest destinations in this world. They decided it was a good time to rest, from what it seemed the Legion had not been to this island recently and no one heard rumors of them or the Legion making their way there as of yet. They wanted some down time to enjoy and figure out where the next dungeon could be.