>>25816979

Your tattered leather armour and Ferra's bloody white hood draw more than a few stares, but you press on unmolested. By the time you get to the inn, exhaustion has set in and she's dozing heavily on your back.

Your entrance draws the attention of your party, sitting down to a cup of ale and a supper of bread and peppered soup. A crust almost falls out of Conara's mouth when she sees the state of you both. hurrying up to open the door for you so you can place Ferra on her bed. When you return, Shang's lips are twisted sternly whilst Horry looks like he might be sick.

"You were at the zealot's thing, then?" Horry asks uncertainly.

"They did say there was a Red Mage being goaded by the leader of the meeting, but we had hoped it was not you..." Shang frowns. "What happened?"

>>25817069
"Yes, I was there. The old man leading them left using magic of some kind, then I started trying to convince some of them about how they were wrong. Then they started up their chant and attacked me and the City Guard."

There's really no way to white wash this, and we WERE riling them up by calling them idiots for their beliefs.

(Anyone around to play, just yet?)

>>25817307
Seconding with regret.

>>25817311

(Honestly, I just have to choose that single minute...)

>>25817307

"That was foolish. Word of the tavern is that that religion has been gaining something of an influence in the Eastern Kingdoms. Give people hope of a god's grace and they'll do anything to have it," the monk replies bluntly, pushing out a seat with his foot and sliding a cup of ale towards you. He gestures a passing woman to bring another bowl of soup. "It's good that you came back. Though Horry has something to tell you."

"N-no, it's not..." The red-headed man purses his lips nervously. He takes a long drink from his cup and sighs. Guiltily, he continues, his blue eyes intensely focused on the grain of the table. "I'm going to Fairland. The herald has news... g-goblins. Bigger band of them than has ever been seen, an -army- of them. They've killed..."

For a moment he looks like he's about to thrown up.

"Almost everyone they say... what they're keeping the rest alive for, I don't know... but they've burnt down half the village, too, and they're eating all the livestock. Lord Erstspear and King Ullond have sent some soldiers to try drive them off but... well, who do they have left?" His voice rises high, defensive, as he fixes his gaze on you. "Cecil, I have to go. My pa, my ma... my sister..."

The colour drains from his face, his shoulders sagging heavily as he takes another steep drink.

>>25817443
Let him go. He has a reason to be a hero now.

>>25817443
"No, it's alright Horry. There's so many crises happening at once we just have to try to do what we can. Just stay alive, alright?"

Let him keep the items he has; he may need them on his quest.

>>25817443
We won't keep you Horry. Have 300 for the road.
I hope they're alright, but it's best you go soon, who knows if they're going to lock down the city after the riot or not.

>>25817641
I second this.

>>25817641

"I've fought goblins before," he assures, eating as quickly as possible. "There might be a lot, but I'm sure if castle knights are there, we'll be able to take them on."

>>25817645

"That's not necessary, Cecil." He holds up a hand to reject you. "There's a man headed for Calim in an hour's time, he said he'll take me with him if I guard his wagon. From there, I'm sure the old White Mage will help me. I just hope I'm not too late in getting there..."

"I don't think the city gates will close any time soon," the monk adds. "It wouldn't bode well for a trading centre to close its gates for something so small as a riot. Trade will grow slow in the coming months, so the Lord of Dorter will want to fill up his coffers as soon as possible."

Horry glances at the wooden clock ticking away on the wall of the inn. As the serving wench from before lays down a hot bowl of soup an a quarter loaf of bread before you, he stands up.

"Alright. I'm going to go meet that farmer. Cecil, Shang... pass my regards to the girls. I'll try catch up, if I can."

Reaching over, he firmly grasps you hand.

"Be well, Cecil. It might've been only been a month or so, but I know you're the kind of man who'll do great things. Even if you weren't destined to be a legendary mage or break a witch's curse."

With a final, uncertain smile, Horry turns, tightening his grip on his shield and hoisting his travelling bag over his shoulder before making his way out the tavern door.

Only some minutes later, the Onion Knight rushes down the stairs, looking between you and Shang.

"He's gone, then...?" When the monk nods, she moves to join you at the table again, looking at you with a scowl. "I saw Ferra. Couldn't you protect her?"

>>25817884
I tried to talk down the crowd, it didn't work, and I did save Ferra.

We need to work with her on getting her over combat shock. She froze up when things got tense and if I hadn't kicked her out of the way of a strike, she would have lost far more than a piece of her ear.
She's a precious thing, but she needs to toughen up a bit before we catch up with the thieves who took the GFC.

I doubt they'll show any mercy to any of us, including her and she needs to be ready and able to act if it comes to fighting them.

>>25817884
"I did what I could when she froze up and she had a blade coming at her head."

She's got a point. We SAW those two guys with swords coming, and instead of getting ready, we continued to talk. That specifically was mentioned in Sage's posts.

>>25817963

Shang gives an agreeing nod at your sentiment towards the girl, but even he flinches slightly when Conara slams her cup down, leaning up from her seat, teals gleaming furiously at you.

"She's just a young girl, Cecil! And up until she's spent her entire life in some bloody temple, fighting nothing fiercer than rainy weather and garden weeds!" Sullenly, she sits back down and sips at her drink. "Not all Warriors of Light have to be actual warriors, you know. And if the three of us can't protect one girl, then how are we supposed to be the ones who protect the Crystals? I know she needs to toughen up, but until she does, we're all that she can rely on."

Downing the rest of her drink, Conara stands.

"I'm going to stay with her through the night. We're leaving come dawn, tomorrow. -Good night-."

After she blusters her way upstairs, Shang lets loose a single, hard chuckle.

"Sometimes I wonder if that one's really a girl..."

>>25818175
Forget about trying to pick Ferra up, she's obviously taken.
Let's hit the sack.

>>25818175
"She's still right, though. Better to put this day behind us now. Good night, Shang."

Tomorrow morning we should pick up another Chainmail for Conara; without Horry she'll need to tank our fights and she'll need better armor.

File: 1372972658790.jpg-(734 KB, 1257x1800, IMG_0003.jpg)

734 KB JPG

Hey Mr.Sage, is it fine if I draw some of the characters or scenes and post them when I feel like?
Heres proof from a year ago that I can draw decently I guess.

Oh god the image was way too large
I'll remember to resize them if I can.

>>25818262
at first I thought he was missing an arm, then I realized he was saluting and it all came together, pretty good.

Any art will increase participation.
>>25818175
We should call it a night ourselves, and pray we wake up the next morning.

>>25818262

(Feel entirely free, Drawbro. I'm sure we'll all get just that much more enjoyment from the threads with you about.)

>>25818251

"Aye, sleep well, Cecil, I'll be up soon." But first he's busying himself with another ale.

Your sleep is unremarkable. You fall into it easily and it leaves you dreamless by the time morning comes. Shang requires but the lightest touches and he's instantly awake, with a look in his eyes so fierce that for a moment you fear he might strike you. Even after a couple weeks on the road, you haven't gotten used to that. You find Conara and Ferra wait outside, where the White Mage is furiously scrubbing at the wooden handle of her prayer rod, dyed a dark red, just as her white hood has a pit of fading rust to itself.

"Alright, let's get a move on." Conara dashes around the inn to take the chocobo. The streets of Dorter are much as they were yesterday, but with many more people crowded about the herald's anvil, no doubt to hear the recounting of yesterday's events, and there seem to be guards patrolling much more frequently. Though you imagine they're not those who were present at the riot yesterday, given the fact that they pass right by you and Ferra without giving you a second glance. The White Mage shrinks a bit, pulling her hood up over her disfigured ear as if it were a crime for which she was responsible.

<continued>

>>25818518


When Conara pulls the caravan about, you climb in. Shang takes the first shift, whipping the reins and soon you are on your way out of Dorter, though the traffic is fierce. It takes you a full hour to even get out of the city. When you are clear of the city, you only follow the road for half a mile or so, before the monk calls back.

"There's a poorly made dirt path heading southeast. This is where we turn off, I suppose." That's all the warning he gives before the ride becomes much less comfortable. Ferra eases her hood down, silently fingering her talisman. After a breakfast of bread and salted fish, Conara glances up to the small slit opening the front of the caravan to the driver, before bouncing across the back to sit next you and leans close.

"You wanna hear something interesting about Shang...?" She grins, mischief in her eyes as if she has forgotten the events of the previous night. Or is at least acting that way.

>>25818532
"Lay it on me."

>>25818532
"Is he a virgin?"

"If so, I already knew, men don't get that tense after they've put it to a woman."

"Otherwise go ahead."

>>25818625

"What?! No! Honestly, is that all you think about? Horry told me about that thief girl, and Ferra told me about the slatterns, too!"

Conara punches your arm, and not too lightly, as the White Mage gasps, looking as though she had just happened upon the house-of-ill-repute anew. When your eyes fall upon her, however, her eyes half-lid over and she turns away, fingers nervously reaching up to her newly marred ear. When she realises, her hands dart down to wring in her lap instead.

"Besides, looking at him, I -reeeaaally- doubt he's still a maid." The Onion Knight gives a snigger you've not heard from her before, like a dopey young boy finding a slice of cake.

>>25818594

She clambers up on the bench, crossing her legs to lean in closer.

"When he went to the tavern yesterday... he was asking strange questions. He said he was looking for a young man with looong white hair, wearing a looong white robe. Said it was Siyan style," she adds no lack of drama to the telling. "Have no idea why, but it's interesting, right? Who do you think it is?"

>>25818708
"Perhaps someone who left their temple, and he's trying to track him down?"

Rolled 85

>>25818708
Mayhaps one of his fellow students?

>>25818785
>>25818788

"You think?" Her eyes gleam with dreams of adventures, of martial artists and duels to the death. "He did say there were three others he trained with. Maybe he wants to track them down one by one and..."

She drew her fingers across her throat, her tongue poking out through her lips.

"I can still hear, you know," the monk calls, irritated. At that, Conara hops back to the other side, sitting next to Ferra with a furtive smirk on her lips.

The travelling is slow, you can tell by the time you set down to camp for the night. The road is long, rough and winding, between high hills, through shallow brooks and the occasional wild growth of small trees and antagonising weeds. Conara trains with her sylph sword against some of these trees, felling them with the wind-blessed slices. Although she thinks she's doing much better than she really is, thanks to said sword, you can tell she's keeping a mind on the things Horry taught her with the sword. Since you've learned and discarded the now empty Osmose Tome, would you like to spend your nights honing your skills with your own hand-half sword? Or perhaps start training with your longsword?

After that, would you like to start fast travelling thoe marsh, or would you like to strike up conversation on the next day of travel?

>>25818937

(Thoe is my new abbreviation for 'to the'.)

>>25818937
Start training with the steel sword.

Also, did we get the second Chainmail for Conara like requested?
And we should equip the chainmail we had bought.

>>25819057
>If not, train with what we're best at, sure branching out is nice, but mastering what we already know is better.
What the fuck are you talking about?
The whole reason we bought the Steel Longsword is because it's much better than the Iron Hand-Half Sword.

>>25818937
Sage, can Regen restore Farra's ear? Or is that Cura?

>>25819121
My bad, I misinterpreted what Sage meant, I thought we were picking up a new class of weapon, but if the Longsword is the same class then yeah that's fine.

>>25819094

(Forgot to give my response to this.)

When you offered the chain mail armour to Conara, the girl simply wrinkled her nose, declaring that she didn't like to be too heavy. She can't be as big or strong as Horry or Shang, but so long as she's quick, she said, she'll be fine with the Adamantoise Shell. In the end, you don the chainmail yourself and don't have to fork out for another.

>>25819135

(Anything severed can only be restored if it's reattached. There are a few exceptions to the rule, but you have none of those.)

>>25819143
>>25819121

(I'm asking if you want to continue training with 1H Swords in order to grow closer to mastering them, or 2H Swords to be able to wield them competently.)

Rolled 26

>>25819180
1H swords.

>>25819180
As I thought, 1h swords it is. Class SSSXBluedeathinReD here we come

>>25819180
We need the Steel Longsword now that Horry is gone.

And we can't restore Ferra's ear, then?

>>25819292
I think disfiguring scars are permanent is what Sage is trying to get across.

>>25819292

(Nope.)

>>25819233
>>25819214

You spend the night, and the nights following, training with your hand-half sword. It's only iron, but mastered, even an iron blade can be a terrific weapon to wield. Though if your first five nights travelling and training are any indication, it will take a very long time indeed. On the contrary, during the fifth day of travelling, Ferra yelps with joy as she completes the last page of the Cura tome. She falls back, letting out a weary sigh, but from the pleased smile on her lips, you can tell she has mastered it.

You travel on. Would you like to fast travel or start a conversation? Also, which of Ferra's tomes would you like for her to begin working on, next?

>>25819399
Placate, for the love of all that is holy, we can't talk to people for shit, so she's gonna have to support us.

>>25819399
Have Ferra start learning Placate.
And switch to learning how to use the Steel Longsword; the rate at which we're learning the 1-Hand is so slow that we need to learn how to use the Steel Longsword before we master 1-Hand.

>>25819399
Talk

"Ferra, do you have a minute, take a break you've been hunched over that book for a while.

I need to ask you something, now don't take this the wrong way, I'm just looking out for you, but when those people in the city started to get angry, you froze up.

Were you afraid? If not, tell me why then. If we get into another fight, I don't want you to get hurt."

>>25819495
You know, she DIDN'T freeze up. She was trying to get us away and the two thugs were coming up from behind her.
She was perfectly fine when we were fighting those Bombs.

You and a few others seem to be remembering that entire fiasco wrong.

(Do we want to go with
>>25819495
or say something else? Or nothing at all?)

>>25819528
I recall Sage putting that Ferra started to panic and hyperventilate while tugging on our arm.

She wasn't really doing anything, just there tugging pointlessly.

>>25819605
Sage can you clarify for us how Ferra reacted to the riot in the city. Was she fine, or panicked.

Rolled 100

>>25819605
nothing at all is my vote

>>25819628

As far you remember, Ferra was trying to pull you away, entreating that you leave the park from as soon as the zealot teleported from the scene.

>>25819605
No. Go with something else.
"Ferra, what do you think about Union? Have you heard about them before?"

(Gonna run with whatever gets a second.)

File: 1372978843729.jpg-(368 KB, 718x1200, conara-resized.jpg)

368 KB JPG

It doesn't look exactly presentable to me and it took too long but I'll try getting better as I go along.
I wasn't sure about the hair style...

You decide to train with the longsword instead for the next two days of travelling, as Ferra begins to read up on her Placate Tome, the studious little thing that she is. Lending Conara your iron hand-half sword, you train together, making the training a degree more helpful than it would be without. Especially for the girl since you have the proficiency to train her.

>>25819889

(I'd imagined it curlier, in my head, full on ringlet style, but I love it, still. Hella looking forward to seeing more. Also, don't suppose you could give a second to a course of action so we can move along?)

>>25819889
It's great, just, her expression makes her look like someone just ran over her dog. Not the Squirt that got picked too soon.

>>25819965

(Kinda looks like she's reading something she doesn't entirely understand, to me.)

>>25819982

(I'm gonna go to the toilet and grab a drink. If nothing gets seconded by the time I get back, I'mma just fast-travel it.)

>>25819698
This, lets get some insight here, I'd also like to ask the same of Conara.

>>25819698

"No...," Ferra replies as you set off the next morning, pursing her lips in a tight frown. "I swear it, though, Cecil, there's evil at work, there. The only ones who can disappear enitrely like that are Time Mages... or practitioners of worse magics, still. Worshipping -Chaos-? It's like they've forgotten about all the past Warriors of Light who have battled on the side of Cosmos against evil, time and time again. Imagine if the Nameless Warrior was never stopped, his Many-Named Blade gaining more and more strength until it would have the power to shatter the world in a single swing! No. No, they can't be allowed to spread their evil." She vehemently shakes her head. "We have to stop them."

Later in the day, when the White Mage takes control of the caravan, Conara's repsonse is just as unhelpful.

"Nothing important like that ever really goes on in Holle. We're not too beholden to any faith, so I doubt they'd waste much time with us. Nor have we had part in any wars since the Velyaran Empire overtook Viljingund and the viking raids were stopped... mostly stopped. But nope, never heard of the Union until Dorter..."

<continued>

>>25820286

"Friends! Come out and see this!" Ferra calls, pulling the chocobo to a stop. You, Shang and Conara step out to find yourselves at the edge of a rather steep drop. A rocky, twisting road leads back and forth down the incline, leading along a few miles of grassland, but beyond that, you can see the place you've been looking for. It might be mistaken for a great lake, stretching as far as the eye can see, if not for the clumps of trees and bumpy lands rising from the filthy, grey-green water. You can see where the river feeds in, flowing down to only stir the bog further. You can only imagine what kinds of things live in there.

Conara points, and you can guess it's at the cropping of rock in the center of it, surrounded by a thicket of trees.

"That must be where the witch's cave is!"

You can only agree. But now that you see the land, it raises a question. What will you do with the caravan and chocobo? Tie them up with feed to last a few days as you traverse inside? Take them with you to brave the marshes?

>>25820370
The problem with the marsh is that the wagon might get stuck.
But if we leave the Chocobo's here, they might be eaten.

I say take the caravan.

File: 1372981935846.jpg-(471 KB, 1200x609, IMG.jpg)

471 KB JPG

...Can we stick the chocobos inside of the tent with a ward, or is that just stupid?

>>25820662

A wardstone's area of effect is wide enough for the tent and caravan both. Are you thinking of leaving the chocobo outside the marsh with the stone or protecting them in the marsh?

>>25820704

(Dammit, trip, you were being so good, too.)

It depends, how long will the ward last and how long will it take us to reach matoya on foot?

>>25820768

(A wardstone will last a full two days. If you were riding a straight road, the way to the cave would last a day's ride, about a day and a half on foot. But given the state of the marsh, it's hard to tell.)

>>25820798

(Either way, I got a post good to go.)

Then I'll vote to take the chocobos with us. It seems that we'll be gone longer than the wards last so its either that we leave them open to die, or we take them with us and have a chance to defend them.

>>25820924
>>25820452

The ride down the hill and to the edge of the marsh takes the rest of the day. After a night of training, eating and a rest, a watchful eye kept out, you start off in the morning. The marsh proves a puzzle to traverse, more than once the only available paths turning back on themselves. As you feared, the caravan wheel gets stuck, but fortunately, you, Shang and Conara are able to get it out, even with help from Ferra who uses her Repel spell to bump the wheel out. And then it gets stuck again. If it weren't for the rock rise always looming in the distance, you would have no idea where you're going. Before long, that and the rise of hills you travelled down is all you can see besides murky waters, weeds and thin, nutrient deprived trees. More than once, you see bubbles rise from beneath the surface of the marsh. By the time night starts to fall, you're just about two thirds of the way to the cave.

Tired and agitated with the ride, Ferra and Conara set up the tent as you tie the chocobo to a weak looking tree.

"This witch had better be worth it," Shang sighs. The hardy young monk is wearier than you've ever seen him. "Why would an old woman live all the way out here?"

>>25820662

(Man, the expression on the background chocobo keeps killing me. Poor, misused birds. They never asked for this.)

>>25820934
To make it easier for them to take advantage of strapping young lads such as ourselves. Ferra, Conara, you hear that, don't let us be enchanted by the nasty old witch's feminine wiles.

>>25821028

"I fear you're hopeless on that end," Ferra mutters. She seems to be recovering well from the shock of the Dorter incident.

"I'd say he's safe," Conara snorts, the tent set up as steadily as it can be on ground so uneven. She and Ferra slip inside.

"I'll take first watch," Shang informs, taking one of the crate-cum-seats from the caravan to perch upon, arms crossed.

>>25821134

(Anyone? Time to call it a night?)

>>25821391

(Yeah, I think I will. If anyone has suggestions for what action to start the next thread with, leave 'em here. Should be back tomorrow night, but if not, will leave word on Twitter. See y'all then.)