The cushiony and brisk comfort of the march-green chairs comforted my wake as my eyes wavered in the unaccustomed sunlight.
Luminous rays had crept through the paned windows of the guild and the site of the 3 of us welcomed my eyes.
I was the first to wake.
Red-Dragon merely slept with his back hunched on an auburn leather chair, his adventurer's badge drooped as his head lay solemnly flat on his face.
The girl, whom I would have found it hypocritical to have abandoned and excluded was lying on a long ink-laden couch, her grey-white hair had drifted along the couch and her adventurer clothing was creased and folded.
Letting my arms pull my spine straight, I allowed myself a small time of peace before doing some basic morning routine.
Stretching, meditation, and slouching.
I needed such things badly.
Too much was going on.
Going from a peaceful 3 years to leaving my home, fending for my life in an unaided region, fighting foons, fighting assassins, isolation for a week, fighting experienced guards, and then almost dying?
Don't even get me started on the ravine creature dilemma.
It was a lot even from face value.
"Vigar."
My voice paled in the lukewarm environment as a shade of silence deepened.
He still had not returned.
He couldn't have actually died right?
I calmed my thoughts that seemed to be spiking quite outrageously and gazed at Red Dragon, or rather Adam.
His movements were quite clunky, like a warrior who had slacked off from training.
The scenes from the last night were quite perplexing and blurry so I struggled to visualize a vivid image but, he was clearly an -S- Rank for a reason.
Manipulating world energy from emotions, being able to spot the creature in a way, scaring it?
I pondered for a second.
I had a while before the others would wake.
Maybe I ought to delve deeper into this creature.
Memories of the creature had been scattered and split over the years, something I'm sure was no natural occurrence.
But the creature had clearly wanted to make its presence known.
Why else would it have given me a power?
A strenuous power, but a power nonetheless.
Weakly sighing at the sight of my casted arm which I had to rest the prior night at an awkward angle due to the absence of Vigar I thought of the other arm that I possessed.
If not for fear of crippling my broken arm, it could've been the perfect replacement.
Invisible and deadly.
Well, not entirely perfect.
The world-energy clause was astronomically stupendous. I highly doubt I would ever be able to utilize such a thing efficiently in a battle.
It was odd how I often questioned myself on my troubles and dilemmas rather than outer things.
Well. It wasn't like there were too many enjoyable things outside my own dilemmas to think about.
Was I to brood on perhaps, potential deaths?
No. I was down and sinking. No need to send me to rock bottom just yet.
My figure stood thoughtfully in the empty and silenced guild hall.
I admired the whimsical view. Flimsily my body flopped over the bar counter.
It was of a luxurious and polished wood-table top.
My arms drew themselves out as my face released itself from strenuous chains.
This place was just bloody wonderful.
Why didn't more people come to take a rest here?
"What are you doing?"
A concerned and condescending voice broke out from the bar before me.
Two wild frenzied and sea-blue eyes struck me through the gap in the air.
My eyelids were still wavering up and down as I looked at the female barrister, a glass in her hand remained partially wiped as her figure stopped still.
Scanning the room and finding 2 more people slouching and tainting the recently refurbished guild-area her eyebrows rose angrily.
"Wa-Wait. That's not fair. You never said we couldn't stay overnight!"
My neck urged outwards as my frustrated face and damning tone seemed to do no wonders on the stoic brown-haired lady before me.
She looked down on me from the lifted steps of the guild-hall.
Keeping an irked expression and brown hair like dirt, she responded with equal force.
"There are no rules. Only commands and you're gonna follow those commands brat."
I felt words vacuum back into my throat as I refrained from violence or actions that could cease if not impend my plans.
Deeply annoyed on my end, our figures began to break out into the streets.
Obviously, I couldn't afford to break ties with the guild, the place where I would presumably be making all my retrieval Judes. Yet I still felt my hand clench tightly, causing my outgrown nails to leave a few reddening marks on my pale skin.
"And you."
Seething rage emerged from the lady as an outstretched finger pointed directly at Red Dragon.
"I expected better, you've been here long enough to know the rules."
Red Dragon's mouth tried to move but before could blurt out a single word the door had been shut firmly.
Bang.
"Derals."
The guild lady spat down on the floor with a revolted expression lying on her face.
I heard that.
I wanted to say.
As we were shut out in the early morning, I felt my back begin to ache.
The shrewd and limpid sunlight had finally sprung down yet it was neither warm nor cushioning.
Just there.
"What's a Deral..."
My voice was spiteful and bothered as my head lifted up to the drooping azure sky, inundated by slate-gray clouds and seemingly ready to just fall down at any moment.
"It's a..."
"It's a..."
Meeting each other's eyes shyly the two backed down trying to offer the answer to the other but their lack of communication seemed to form a stand-still.
We carried on strolling down, towards the Valley where we would find the Crono-Ivarians yet my question was still not answered.
I felt hot at this absence of knowledge and tried to bring the topic back steadily.
"Is it something like a freeloader?"
Red Dragon's experienced voice curved through the wind.
"Somewhat, a Deral is someone not originally from the Kingdom. For example, when I first arrived I was a Deral. Therefore I will always be a Deral."
I nodded meekly.
My irritation was panging down as winding winds soothed me.
It truly was a bore to be homeless.
"You don't have a stay by any chance, Red Dragon?"
Slyly, I tried to make my out-of-the-blue question as indifferent and discreet as possible.
There was an obsolete delay before Red Dragon spoke calmly, not a change in his fowl.
"Nope, I just bought swords, armor, and high-quality food back in my old days."
I felt a sigh curl within my throat as I continued strolling through the Crow-Kingdom with my "party."
I hadn't a clue where we were going in fact.
Just that I was to follow the experienced Red Dragon to the Valley where we would complete our quest.
"But."
An oaky voice settled into the cold air.
"I'd probably have been able to buy 10 of the biggest estates in this kingdom if most of my adventurer's money hadn't gone to paying off an old-partners debts."
It wasn't a tone of regret but one of sorrow and dissapointment.
"Are they okay now?"
I asked whilst pondering the past of a man such as himself.
He was powerful.
He clearly had potential.
So where had it gone wrong?
A somber mood and expression had formed by the lower parts of Red-Dragon's face.
"They're doing well. I guess some of us moved on and some of us."
He looked at his hands for a brief moment.
Some sweat had joined at the tip of his chin.
"I guess some of us got a bit stuck along the way."
Oh.
So a falling out had probably occurred.
No more talks or noticeable actions arose.
I doubted Red Dragon was in the mood for a conversation, and I heavily doubted that the girl would ever be in a conversational mood.
People had hardships that still affected them throughout the years.
Myself included, though I suppose mine was a bit more... physical.
The comfortable and curious atmosphere that had formed slowly crumbled into a lost memory.
I queased as my stomach whined in abhorrence.
I hadn't eaten last night, and it seemed like I had lost a lot of energy from various 'events.'
Such energy losses had made our walk to wherever we were ambling off too far too stressful and obsolete.
It was only when we reached the edge of the crow-kingdom that I realized.
There was a long walk ahead.
An evanescent green lay outside the Crow Kingdom.
It didn't fit the mood.
It was covered in a sea of sailing swamp-green strands and the ground was a squelchy, creasing mud bog.
As Red Dragon showed off his adventurer pass we soon found ourselves taking our first sinking steps into the mud.
The first of many.
The howling winds swept by the flailing grass as our figures stood by the top of a bleached-green hill.
We stood there.
Our figures wrapped each other in a pair of arms as the wind gathered and swooshed from the skies.
The entire crow kingdom was within our view.
It was a city of black, it was so black that it made the grassy fields around it look like hordes of emerald jewels.
Silently. Awkwardly. Concerningly. And strangely.
"So... what do we do now?"
I dared to ask what seemed to have been a forbidden question up till this point in time.
Looking as serious and stoic as possible, Red Dragon looked honorably into the distance, his sheathed blade by his side whilst his legs stood firmly and implanted themselves into the now-dried soil.
"I forgot."
Ah.
Well.
That isn't that good, is it?
"Do you think you might be able to remember or..."
Trying to form some sort of hope or opening I requested an answer as our figures chilled at the peak of the wind's attack range.
The silence was all I needed to know.
Well.
As long as we weren't up here for too long of a time.
We would be good.
Right?
Crepuscule was dawning. Disappearing, the sombre sun faded away into the pack of drifting clouds that danced hungrily in the drooping sky, a darkness devouring what little light was left in the eerie clearing.
Towering tombstones stood as grim as a Dickensian mill, their colour one of faded glory: once a smooth marble yet now a dark, weatherbeaten, unrecognisable slab of ancient-stone.
Howling, the dowsing wind was a fallen druid seeking long-sought revenge on this desolate night.
Just inside the perimeter of the valley stood a frail sea of old solitary yew trees whose bewitched branches swayed ominously in the cool breeze.
Each trunk was twisted and turned in tight knots, its freakishly swollen veins of roots stretching across the quaggy malodorous floor like groping hands, reaching desperately out to grasp, throttle and besmirch anything in reach.
Strewn with dead leaves, the coarse ground was a predator of the elements: their final resting place.
Yeah, that's right.
It had been 1-2-3-4.
18 hours.
18 literal hours.
We had arrived at the clearing where the Crolo-Ivarians would.
I haven't a clue. Maybe spawn in?
The point was, it had been a while.
Too long of a while for my liking.
2 hours for Red Dragon to get the password.
4 Hours to go through some strange passage.
And we had been waiting here for 12 hours.
Sleeping was a big no-no.
Since apparently that could sense sleeping.
So we just waited for the Crolo-Ivarians to spill into the valley.
I had described my view as well as I could from our little open bunker near the top of the valley.
What else was I to do?
Bungee-Jump?
Looking behind me, I saw the other members in my party sitting comfortably in the corner.
I had been on duty for the last hour.
If Vigar was here then he could have just done the job for all of us...
As my thoughts lay on Vigar something within the environment changed.
The Valley trembled, the weaker branches on trees fell.
Fallen leaves formed a maelstrom in the air that threatened to reach our little bunker.
I was shocked,astounded, and heavy-breathed.
The girl was just as me.
But Red Dragon was different.
As if he had seen this countless times, he waited by the front with his sword hand ready.
His mature oaky voice matched with his sunken eyes as his hand twitched left, right,left-right.
"They're here."
And a magnificent pack of black figures swarmed the valley from the left, the right, the left, and the right.
Getting dangerously close to us?