Chapter 6: Chapter Five: Mysteries Anew

Valdus sat with an awestruck expression, then smiled brightly and shuffled toward Lucile and Cedric.

“A-a dragon! I’ve always wanted to see a real one!!”
Valdus suddenly blurted out,
“I-I had seen that purple one before I came to Eldoria, but- haha I was scared out of my mind!”

Cedric appeared just as surprised.
“Uhh... Don’t...dragons or anything of the like exist in your realm?”

“N-no, not at all. Well...aside from literature and artwork. They’re spoken of in fairy tales, in books and such too, but they’ve never truly existed before our eyes.”
Valdus answered.

“W-well, anyway...”
Cedric cleared his throat,
“...I’m not just an ordinary dragon - I’m a Spirit summoned by Lucile. Furthermore, you’ll see what magic we wield in the future, and more to Scarlet than just healing magic, I bet.”

“Though I think we’d best hope that a need for such a thing never arrives.”
Scarlet smiled,
“That said...chances of it being needed may become high...”

She then left the room soon after. Ace nodded to Lucile then sat back down. Lucile exited the room, and Ace took a deep breath, looking at Valdus with a stern expression. Valdus sat ready to listen.

“Okay...this is going to be sudden, but... Valdus, this realm right now is unpredictable and extremely dangerous. To be honest, I’m still worried for your safety. I get that it’s out of nowhere, but...you’re going to need to train to fight.”
He sounded a lot more serious now.
“Lucile and I can fight well, but there’s no knowing if a time will come where we can’t defend you.”

Valdus took heed of Ace’s words. Not knowing any other options, he nodded. Ace then smiled again.

“Well, let’s get you geared up then! You can find equipment lying around the shack. That sword you had with you when I first found you should be somewhere around, as well. Once you’ve got what you need, meet Lucile and I outside.”
Ace stood up and moved to exit the room.

Just before he left though, Valdus called to ask him about his uniform and the sword.

Ace appeared bewildered and replied,
“I’m not sure what you mean by ‘uniform’. All I did was remove your jacket and shirt so that I could wrap the bandages around your wound. Somehow the clothes weren’t stained, though...and the sword... It’s the same, I just found you with it.”

Still confused, Valdus decided to leave it be, and nodded. As Ace left, Valdus lifted himself off the bed, expecting another shock of pain. Instead, he felt relieved of any pain at all. He put on the rest of his new clothing and left the room. A few rooms from where he rested, he came across a larger room filled with crates of weaponry and armour – much like a large arsenal.

I get he claimed I’d find this stuff just lying around, but geez...
Valdus pondered.

The room was rather dusty, so Valdus didn’t take much time finding what he’d wanted. He shuffled through the crates and spotted a katana. As he grabbed it, he felt strength rush through him.

Holding the sword forward, he smirked.
This must’ve been the sword... It’s perfect!

Valdus then held the sword over his shoulder and exited the room, not caring to take anything else. He exited the shack to where Ace and Lucile were waiting. Cedric was perched on Lucile’s shoulder.

“You seem to be geared up, but...where’s your armour?”
Lucile questioned.

“I won’t be using armour. It’d weigh me down.”
Valdus humoured.

Ace and Lucile nodded to each other, then turned to leave. Valdus took a step to follow. They were then stopped by Scarlet’s shouting, and she sounded angry. Mad, even. Ace slowly turned to look back at the shack, sighting Scarlet standing at the entrance.

“Where’s the ingredients you said you’d collect? You promised you’d collect them while I fixed the farm!”
Scarlet shouted.

“I-I thought I brought them yesterday...!”
Ace stuttered.

“Well, they’re nowhere!”
Scarlet shouted again,
“Now, since you made a promise, I expect you to bring them back when you return!”

Ace visibly shuddered, nodded, and turned to run. Cedric and Lucile chuckled before following. Confused, Valdus chased after them, and as they ran further into the Cardinal Plains, he noticed the grass surrounding them had grown taller than the grass closer to the shack. Valdus finally caught up to the other three, sighting Ace stumble before falling onto his back.

“I even reminded you.”
Lucile humoured.

“Oh...shut up...! You have no idea how terrifying she is when she’s mad...!”
Ace panted.

The group sat around in the tall grass for the time being to relax, Cedric hopping off of Lucile’s shoulder to sit next to him. The place was calm and serene as the wind blew, tall grass swaying below the blue sky above. They laid there for a moment, their surroundings gentle and quiet, until broken by a sequence of odd sounds. An echo of high-pitched calls and rustling in the grass. Ace and Lucile stood up in a guarding stance, while Cedric perched back onto Lucile’s shoulder. They each scanned the surrounding area.

“What was that?”
Valdus asked, getting up as well, but staying low.

“Raptors... They roam through these plains, but they’ve been acting up recently, attacking almost anyone who steps foot out here. Usually they’d only dance around and the worst they would do was play a few tricks on travellers, but they never really attacked anyone at the time.”
Ace explained.

“Before we knew it, Eldoria fell into chaos, and now even the friendliest of creatures became hellbent...”
Cedric commented.

“...and...we’re surrounded by a pack of those Raptors, aren’t we...?”
Valdus asked.

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The others nodded. Valdus stood, readying his weapon as well. Raptors began to emerge from the tall grass, and – as a matter of fact – they were surrounded. It was a pack of five. Valdus, Ace and Lucile stood back to back, ready to fight at any moment. The Raptors started to walk around in a circle, glaring at them. They had frills and patterned scales. Their teeth were sharp, and the same was with their curved claws. The Raptors’ eyes and scale colours, on the other hand, seemed strange.

“Something isn’t right... The colour of their scales isn’t as visible and vibrant as they usually are. I’ve...seen this before, but they’re coated by that black mist...and their eyes...”
Lucile sounded worried.

“Blood red. You say they usually dance around, but these ones look like they have the thirst for blood...”
Valdus responded.

“Looks like there’s no other choice. Consider this as your start to training, Valdus!”
Ace gave a slight smirk.

One of the Raptors barked and leaped toward Ace. He attacked it, bashing the Raptor aside with his greatsword. It landed on its side and quickly jumped back up. The rest of the pack screeched, and one Raptor stood out in front of the others, making it clear that it was the pack leader. The pack backed away as the leader gave out another call. It then started hissing as its frill fanned out. Valdus glanced at it, before looking at Ace, who appeared severely dazed.

“What the-...”
Ace barely mustered the words, before staggering back and suddenly vomiting.

Valdus looked back to the Raptor in front of him and noticed it had been facing directly toward Ace. Before Valdus could notice the peculiar patterns across its frills, they curled back, and the hissing paused. Lucile shifted to guard Ace, while the pack leader turned to face Valdus. Suddenly, it screeched and leaped forward. He shouted in panic, stepping back and instinctively cutting it with his blade. Once struck, it fell and crashed onto the ground behind him. A white flame shone from the Raptor’s wound, immediately after Valdus had struck it, and the Raptor yelped as the fire blazed. Valdus watched as it stumbled to its feet and ran away – the rest of the pack following. Failing to gather what he just witnessed, he then stared at the blade of his sword, watching as a streak of the Raptor’s blood on it began to seemingly evaporate.

“What...was that...?”
Ace asked groggily,
“Forget what just happened to me...I’m all right... I saw you cut the Raptor with your sword, but its wound set alight. Not only did it do that, but the fire was white...!”

“I-I don’t know either...! I’ve-... I’ve never wielded a weapon properly before, let alone fought with this exact sword...”
Valdus mumbled,
“...and that attack I did... That out of pure panic...”

Ace sighed and gave a small laugh. He disregarded Valdus’s panic, complimenting him instead, then suggested that they collect the ingredients he had promised for Scarlet before getting some rest. The others agreed.

 

Night had soon fallen, and as they returned to the shack with the required ingredients, Scarlet awaited with a welcoming smile. Valdus noticed the farm behind the shack had been completely fixed up. It was rather run-down the last time he saw it, and what felt like in no time, Scarlet had repaired the farm and readied the field.

“I see you finally got the ingredients back. Getting food while those Raptors run amok can prove difficult. You two didn’t have any trouble if you ran into any, did you?”
Scarlet smiled as she took the ingredients and walked inside.

“Y-yeah...no trouble... We ran into a pack of them, but Valdus sent them running with some strange magic.”
Ace replied immediately, following Scarlet indoors.

“The fire wasn’t intentional... I don’t know what it-”
Valdus was stopped mid-sentence.

A sudden burn seared his left hand, and he felt it sap his strength in an instant. He dropped to his knees, holding his left hand and visibly shaking. Soon, blue and white fire engulfed his hand, too.

The hell is this? First the Raptor’s wound, now my hand!
Valdus barely mustered a grunt.

He felt his body getting weaker. The others turned to look outside, toward the entrance of the shack, and noticed Valdus on his knees. Lucile rushed over to Valdus then stumbled back after noticing the flames engulfing his hand. Sparks of blue embers flickered from the fire, too.

“Valdus?”
Lucile called,
That flame...! It’s similar to the one that erupted from the Raptor’s wound!

“My hand...! It just suddenly...lit up with these...damned flames! Now I can tell why that Raptor was in such a hurry to retreat... It burns like hell!!”
Valdus shouted back.

The fire soon dissipated not too long after they had sparked, the searing pain having faded with it. He still held his hand, and was still shaking from the sudden event, only to notice that he had no severe burns. His forehand was bleeding a bit though, and the blood began to set alight too, with the same blue and white fire. Soon all the blood on his hand was gone. Scarlet quickly reached over to Valdus to ease any lingering pain, shocked to also observe no traces of visible injury.

“That...was the magic you caused...?”
Scarlet muttered,
“That looked and sounded like it hurt a lot, but...you don’t have any burns from it, at all... And the bleeding just a moment ago lit up, too!”

“I don’t know anything about it... It’s just...happened. Outside of my control...never had it before...!”
Valdus responded.

Scarlet seemed worried but avoided prying any further. Once she was done easing Valdus’s pain, she stood back up, beside Ace.

“Kid, you’ve got some strange magic... We’ve seen two feats from it, so far. One was good, and the other... Well that was far from anything you’d call good...”
Lucile sighed.

“Let’s hope for another good outcome over what we just saw... Let’s rest for now. Later on, we’ll see if we can work on handling that magic. If anything, we’ll want to be careful, though. At the current moment it’s out of anyone’s control, and if we push you too far, who knows what’ll happen?”
Ace commented.

Valdus nodded then stared at his sword.
A katana... Was it the sword that caused the fire...or something I’ve always had? Maybe...a curse, or... Maybe it could have something to do with the Realm-Link...

Valdus then shook his head and sighed, before standing and staggering into the shack, with a bit of help from Ace.

Valdus stared at the ground as he walked and mumbled to himself,
“Whatever it is...only time will tell, I guess... Hehe...”

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