Chapter 4: Chapter 3 – A fresh taste, of Sea-Salt and Blood

I make my way through the soaked grass blades, feeling the small water droplets sinking between the plates of my foot armor, making me shiver. 

“When do you think it rained last?” Rito suddenly asks. 

“I uh, I don’t have a clue, maybe a day ago?” I reply. 

“Hm, alright.” Rito says. 

“Any reason for the sudden question?” I ask. 

“Not in particular.” Rito replies. Ever since we got to Alana, Rito has seemed down, I don’t know why he is in such a mood, or if I can even help him, but I have to try. 

“Say Rito, do you remember the last time we went through Sentinel, and you begged me to try some of the meat shops.. meat.” I ask Rito. 

“Yeah I do, why?” Rito replies. 

“Well, since we are actually gonna stay there, how about we buy some.” I ask. Rito’s eyes slightly light up. 

“Sure, I am pretty hungry right about now, we just have to cross the ocean.” Rito says. 

“No biggie, we just climbed a cliff, we should be able to cross a bridge.” I reply. I let my eyes wander around, I look to the left of the massive mountain beside us, into a valley of sorts. A couple buildings with the same building styles as Alana peer through my vision. Rito also stares at the area.
“Hey, that’s Wayside Inn!” Rito burst out.
“Wayside Inn?”

“Yeah, wait, you didn’t notice it last time we went through here?” Rito asks with a puzzled expression.
“No.” I say quietly.
“I was looking at the mountains.” I say, Rito sighs.
“Anyway, there is a bard over there called Vinifera, from what I’ve heard, her songs can heal!”
“That can’t be true.” I say.
“Well, how bout when we are out of Sentinel, we go there and see if the myth is real?” Rito bets.
“Sure, might as well.” I say as we finally come off the soft wet grass.

I set my foot on the hard sandstone, and I hear the crunch it makes on the ground. I begin feeling the warm rays of heat from the sun, warming up my lavender skin and making me sweat. 

“It is so unbearably hot right now, couldn’t we just take a quick dive and cool off?” Rito asks. “Would be refreshing, but honestly I would rather not, of what I’ve heard there are dangers in the water.”

“Oh that’s some nonsense, no way these waters have any danger, the water is only like three meters deep, how the hell can there be anything down there we can’t already see?” Rito replies. 

“I don’t know man, but I don't trust these ‘Calming Waters’ as they call it, let’s just move onward, and get a drink at Sentinel.” I say. 

“Fine, but you pay with what silver you have left.”. 

“Alright..” I reluctantly agree. We finally reach halfway over the massive solid bridge, and as I look to the left, I sport a massive cliffside, a sort of path going upwards, to a square like tower. It looms its shadow on the water below. Close to the cliff, a small flat island floats, with small wooden huts on it. Of what I remember, The island is called Isle of Eth. I tear my gaze away, and we keep traversing forward. Soon enough I start to hear the small bells ringing from the dock area, and the sounds of the boats docking. The sailors are rambling on how they saw a massive beast in the sea, and that’s the reason why their tons of fish disappeared suddenly. We pass the docks, and we make our way up the slope into Sentinel. Beautiful and green, with grass sprouting out from the small cracks in the sandstone, and vines hanging from the ridges running with the walls, the roof of the entrance was open to the blue sky, with rays of sun hitting nearly every surface. Though we have to ignore the beauty, and find out if there are any active bounties.

We hurry between crowds of folk trying to get wares, when we finally get to the massive bounty board, we begin searching for easy targets that would get us some attention.

“Okay of what I can see, there are a bunch of open jobs. Assassins, Necromancers, Akumas and … Wraith Knights...” Rito says with horror in his voice. 

“Uh Rito? Are you feeling well, you seem a bit shaken, what’s up?” I ask him worryingly. “It’s really nothing.. I mean uh, do you know what Wraith Knights are?” Rito says. 

“I’ve heard of them, aren’t they some sort of  ‘evil’ or dark version of the Sigil Knights?” 

“Well you aren’t wrong, but they are much more evil than you think, they use mirrors as a sort of gate, and they then go onto ravage towns and villages, all in the name of corruption and hate. truly disgusting, I wouldn’t even describe those monsters as human anymore… They follow Atlum, the god of evil and malice, what rotten minds those creatures must have…” Rito says with disgust and hatred in his eyes. 

“Hey hey easy, they sound extraordinarily evil, but for now let’s focus on smaller bounties, Okay?” I say giving a clap on Rito’s back.

 “Yeah… of course… Oh wait, it says here to go down to the Bounty Officer, at the cells of Sentinel, if you want to activate a bounty.” Rito says. But before we even got on our way to the cells we suddenly heard.

“Ey Migi Vuru? Could I interest you two fine knights in some of my delicious meat?” A bald man yells at us. “Well how much for two pieces of meat. ”I ask, while walking over to his shop, noticing his green scaly skin, and horns piercing out of his head, first time I've met a Kasparan Ithink to myself as me and Rito look in gleeful joy over the juicy meats in his shop. “Four silver for each piece of meat.” The Kasperan answers. 

“Alright, sure. “ I say as I hand him the silver. 

“Hey wait, I think I recognise you from somewhere, Oh yea, Dorgan right? isn’t there a rumor that you have slayed the horrifying Sand Dragon, that was located at the Burial Grounds tower.” I ask. 

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“While also being the originator of the Oni martial art style, and having trained the infamous Big Hoss, the strongest mortal in Gaia, right?” Rito jumps in to ask. 

“Whaat no, i'm just a humble chef and meat salesman haha” Dorgan says clearly sweating “Well alright then, see you later Dorgan!” We walk away from Dorgan's meat shop.

We travel down the crepid halls of the bustling Sentinel, walls thin like paper, but still of concrete, we could hear everything, to the merchants selling their wares, to thieves scheming a quick money grab, to the waves outside the Sentinel itself. We go into one of the hallways next to Dorgan's meat shop, and we go further in, there we arrive at a small and tight stairway on the right side of the wall. 

“The Bounty Officer should be down these stairs.” Rito says. We begin descending the cramped stairs, finally entering a hallway into the cells, we walk along the verdant colored carpeting that runs in a narrow line across the halls towards the cells. Passing fire pits and the small corridor into the grand hall of the cells, peering towards the ceiling allowed me to see the guards patrolling the small footbridges webbing across the roof of the room. Slowly approaching the Bounty Officer, feeling every single guard's cold eyes gawk right at us, suspecting every single move, with spears and swords ready. 

“Hey, do you guys need any help?” I ask the menacing Bounty Officer. 

“There’s been a lot happening around here,” the officer says while shuffling through records. “Here, there’s an assassin named Ajax who’s been causing some trouble, could you get him for us? 

“Yeah, we’ll have him back here soon.” I say as he hands us Ajax’s file. Looking down at the report given to us, I see an unfamiliar attribute. 

“Wait, what is a madrasian?” I ask Rito while we walk towards the stairway. 

“Oh, uh. Well, the madrasian are a race of people who can shapeshift basically, they are known for being thieves and tricksters, but of course most of it is a stereotype, but I guess in this case it’s not of course, just look out for weird ways people would interact with us. Also if for some reason this Ajax guy hasn’t taken another shape, Madraisan people usually have pale skin, with ash gray hair and green eyes. Just in case you needed to know.” Rito replies. We continue to converse about how we can take down an assassin as only two knights. We make our way into the populated market area again and begin our search for Ajax.

Investigating around the halls and rooms inside Sentinel, asking any stranger if they have seen someone fitting the description. After hours of searching, we finally come across a person covered in amethyst colored feathers, with a crooked beak, and four crimson eyes. 

A Morvid. I remember seeing them in my old encyclopedia. Instead of growing naturally like everybody else, they instead need to feed on their own kind to become competent and powerful. It sounded like a myth but now that I'm standing in front of one, I question the many other ‘myths’ I’ve read on. Still we asked the creature if he had seen someone named Ajax, He replied he may have heard someone with that name in the upper parts of Sentinel. It seemed a bit suspicious that he could talk so clearly, but we decided to trust him since we were out of options. We went into the same path the cells were, but instead of going right, we went left, a set of stairs up came clear behind a piece of red cloth. We begin advancing up the narrow stairway. As we reach the end of the stairway, we see a doctor standing still to the side of the wall, waiting for patients. He seems to have a small operating room in the wall, and he is just standing outside it. We stroll past him and continue on into the larger room, to our right a wide staircase leading up to a small plateau, taking up most of the area in the massive space. Banners decked with green colors hang from small overhangs across the massive room, while the fire pits gnister flames illuminating the room in an ominous light. Weirdly enough this area seems completely empty of people, it is only us and the Morvid, and the doctor standing quietly by the wall.  

“So this is where I heard of Ajax last, a couple people were talking in this area about him.” the Morvid says.

I look around for a second to inspect the area for any place Ajax could have hidden. My eyes jolt back to where Rito is, to see the Morvid sliding a Shiny dagger inside of his back, cleanly taking it out and kicking Rito to the ground, he shifts to his true appearance. Roughened hair and silver skin, with a big ugly grin on his heinous face. 

“You two really fell for such a simple scheme huh, taking the form of a simple creature, I think it was named Arthur or something, doesn’t matter anyway!” The madrasian blurted out with a gross laugh. As Rito lays on the floor, trying to regain his strength, The madrasian looks me directly in the eye with malicious intent. I get ready to fight him, as he licks his blade like some sort of psychotic maniac. 

“Well I suppose I can just rob you now, you are just a single knight, there is no possible way you can defeat me, Ajax, Overlord of Sentinel”. He says, as he takes a good step back, then suddenly lunges forwards, while an ear piercing noise of bane is heard banging throughout the room. I become shocked and I immediately turn from offense to defense, as Ajax gets closer to me. My eyes rapidly flux over to Rito slowly standing up, right back to Ajax now nearly reaching me, I get ready for an absolute barrage of attacks, as he slowly grates his dagger up against my blade, slowly chipping flakes away from my indigo sword. Holding my hilt with all of my strength, as this madman is chipping my sword away, I hear a sizzling noise mellow out into the room, Ajax hears this and he immediately bolts away in a quick dash. Seeing Rito finally up, but crouching over his hilt to keep balance, I realize I have to take this fight alone, no matter if I'm outclassed and skilled, I'll have to do good with brute force. 

“Did you run out of energy or something, huh Ajax!” I yell at the coward. His face turns sour quickly, obviously because I hurt his fragile pride. He stares me right in the eyes, as he spurts towards me with murderous intent. He takes a swing but I narrowly dodged it, he then suddenly takes out three spare daggers, and throws them all with precision towards me, I try to get out of the way and nearly succeed, but a single of the daggers hit me in the arm and tears a piece of my flesh away. 

“Ah fuck!, you're gonna pay for that you weasel!” I yell at Ajax. 

“I’m not gonna pay for shit! Especially if you can’t catch me!” He cheers as he begins to run away. But before he gets away, I fling my sword at him and I hit him directly in the leg, he falls to the ground and hits his chin on the ground. He seems to be wounded enough to not be able to run. I hurry over to get him tied up, he yells and screeches to get off. I finally have him completely locked in place. 

“What was that about not paying for what you did, you piece of shit?” I say while holding the bastard down to the ground. 

“You won’t put me under! my squad will be on your trail day and night, hunting you down!” He squaws. 

“Your intimidations won’t work on me buddy, you're going to rot in a cell for the rest of your life.” I say. 

“No no no no, please I beg, I have money, please don’t please PLEASE!” He tries to beg for his life but I don't budge. I take him over my shoulder and I walk over to see how Rito is doing. 

“Rito I got the bastard, but uh, how are you doing?” I ask Rito as he kneels on the floor. “I’m uh, not doing too good, just let me sit for a second, and deliver that asshat to the Bounty Officer.” Rito says. 

“You got it, and you, Ajax, I don’t think you are gonna like where we are gonna go now.” I mockingly say to Ajax. He begins to wiggle around, clearly trying to escape. I hold him tight. I travel down the same stair, and I get into the massive hall again. 

“I caught him, or me and my friend did, could you write a recommendation to the Sigil Knight order of our deeds?” I ask the Bounty Officer. 

“You did very well, I will write a star recommendation to the Order, now, let me take this nuisance into his new home, and eventual grave. You and your Fischeran friend should head to the Sigil Headquarters in Royal Woods, its located in one of the massive trees, good luck on your journey pal.”

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