Chapter 9 Trek to Kegh
"We've been walking non stop for god knows how long. I'm resting." Mordain said.
"I'm with you, my feet are killing me." Roxy answered.
Mordain sat on a fallen over tree, and Roxy sat next to him.
Handar disappeared into the trees as he so often did when they took a break, and the other two boys stood a bit further off and started chatting. Mordain felt a pang of jealousy shoot through him.
"You can't be jealous you know." Roxy said.
Mordain laughed, "I know, it's just, I've waited so long, I really don't want to share him."
"He is still your brother's best friend; you have to realize that, they will still want to do things without you."
Mordain just stared in front of him.
Handar emerged out of the trees, "We are in serious trouble."
Mordain looked at Handar. "Aren't we always?"
"Not like this, we need to get moving. I just had déjà vu."
"I always get déjà vu. It's nothing to worry about." Mordain answered Handar.
"Not like this, déjà vu is commonly misunderstood as a single person having a feeling of being here before, or have doing that before, its not. Its the energy of the world around you remembering something and the energy rubbing off on someone. When an elf gets déjà vu, it's always something bad, as the world tends to remember only the bad things that happened to it.
A demon is going to appear somewhere in the closer region. You guys are anything but ready to fight a demon. You held your own against the Ogres but a demon is something else, you never know what a single one is capable of. We need to get going."
Jason and Richard had come closer in the mean time to have a listen of what was going on.
The five of them set of in a run through the trees, dodging trees and debris left and right. No one seemed in such a panic as was Handar, he had faced demons before, he knew the dangers, and the children were not ready for even the weakest of demons at this stage. Handar also wondered why a demon was to appear in the middle of the Eddar forest. He would have to come back later and either banish it or kill it.
Mordain saw a silhouette running next to them through the trees, a black shadow of something. It was short, but there was more than one, they were shorter than men but had the same upper body.
"Guys I don't mean to sound strange or anything, but something is definitely following us!" Mordain said between running and breaths.
Handar looked and saw the party of faun following them, this was not good. If they were the demented kind, Handar could only hope they found some way to lose them. A faun is a half man half goat, with strange powers. The father of all fauns was a good guy; he helped out, becoming one with nature. He helped lost humans and other races find their way through the woods, all faun are given to flirtatiousness, he died in a battle with a demon in protecting his clan. His sons split after that, some took it harsh and started finding pleasure in torturing others for their own pleasure, and the others took to their fathers' word and are trying to uphold his beliefs. A faun will lure you back to its nest with promises of magic and pleasure, but will then make you sing and dance for their own pleasure, if you are female, they will rape you; a faun gets bored very easily, when so it will then simply kill you.
"Stop and stay close!" Handar said.
The four friends stopped immediately and gathered around Handar.
"Do not fall into the spell of the faun. It will try and convince you to go with it. Don't. It is of utmost importance."
The faun stopped running and turned towards the friends. One of them approached the group.
It had the legs of a goat and upper body of a human, albeit a hairy one, his face was quite handsome, but he had two tiny goat horns on his head.
"Howdy. What brings you so deep into the Eddar? Oh and a elf as well I see"
"Hello faun, can we help you?" Handar asked back.
"Please, call me Marchocias." The faun said bowing.
Handar let out an audible hiss and crouch into a defensive position.
"Well, it was nice meeting you but we need to be off. See ya." Mordain said making a shooing motion with his hands.
The faun looked taken aback. "Why so rude my dear sir?"
"Listen dude, I know what you are all about." Mordain said to the faun touching his powers with his mind so as to have a defense should it attack.
The faun gave an evil snicker and the other faun moved closer.
"Why don't you come with us, we have shelter and food, a storm is approaching." Marchocias said.
Mordain looked up, not even a wisp of a cloud was floating about.
The faun lifted his hands and clouds started appearing.
"He is not what he seems Mordain, be careful!" Handar shouted.
Roxy started approaching the faun. She seemed to be in a trance.
"Roxy stop, he has nothing but bad things planned for you!" Mordain said.
"We have warm food, and we can play games, forget about them Roxy, come with us."
The faun held out his hand.
Richard also started walking towards the faun.
"Richard no!" Jason screamed. "It's tricking you!"
"I don't have time for this! Leave my boyfriend alone!" Mordain said releasing a kinetic blast of energy from his hand. The faun shot backwards like a horse kicked him.
The faun looked dazed whilst trying to stand up. "You are trying my patients human!"
The rain started falling hard; drops of water hitting all kinds of debris filled the air.
Everybody got soaked and it got harder and harder to even see in front of you. The faun was in deed very powerful. His voice echoed the rain, "Come we have shelter, this storm will carry on."
Roxy again started advancing through the rain towards the faun, Richard following behind.
Jason unsheathed his sword and also started towards the group satyrs.
"No you mustn't, it can rip your life away with but a look if you engage in physical combat with it." Handar shouted over the thundering clouds.
"Besting this creature takes a skill of wits, of which Mordain is the richest. Leave it to him."
Mordain cast his hand through the air and made a roof of energy above him that blocked the rain. Roxy was now with the faun, luckily Mordain knew the faun would not rest until he had Richard as well, they are greedy.
"Roxy, we need to get to Kegh, don't let this thing fool you!"
"I am growing tired of you human!" Marchocias said.
He locked gazes with Mordain and a battle of the minds started.
A faun is inept with twisting minds to their will.
Mordain felt something enter his head. "You need to let them go, they will be safer with the faun." a voice in his head told him.
"They are wet and cold, they don't really want to continue through the rain."
Mordain weighed his options, the voice made utmost sense.
"Their camp must be close by. We will be safe there for the time being. They don't look all that intimidating."
Mordain started walking towards the faun.
"Mordain get a grip! When has your willpower ever been overpowered by something else!" Jason was growing impatient.
"Why is it not targeting me?" He asked Handar.
"I think it's actually interested in Richard the most, Mordain is just standing in his way."
Mordain reached to the back of his mind and touched his power, the faun was still inside his head; it could feel the vast amount of powers lying in the threshold of Mordain's head.
The faun pulled away as quickly as he could.
Mordain's hand shot out, the rain stopped immediately and the faun lost all color in his face. He had now realized just whom he had tried to best.
"Aradia please!" the faun silently whimpered.
Mordain felt his mind touching something in history; he felt a name, a name he couldn't remember. He felt his mouth move, but it wasn't his words coming out.
Mordain felt power riding on his finger tips. "Do you know who I am?"
Marchocias' friends had started heading back into the trees, Mordain put up a psychic shield that they all walked into.
"No one will exit here except by my leave!" Mordain said to the faun, his face twisting in rage.
Richard, Roxy and Jason looked at Mordain in awe. His eyes were radiating power, tiny lightning flashes was visible in his eyes. They all saw how powerful Mordain really was.
Handar looked a bit taken aback; he didn't think Mordain would have discovered his powers so soon. These kids were truly the Toramdon Eyes of late, Richard and Mordain's display of power in the last few days...
Mordain snapped back to reality and took control of his mind back.
"You will not bother us any longer! Take your friends and fuck off!"
"Yes sir!" Marchocias bowed and turned around to walk away.
Mordain walked back to his friends, the faun's friends had long since abandoned him.
Mordain swung around and shot his hand out. A kinetic shield shot up in front of him, and absorbed the energy the faun just shot out at them.
"I gave you a chance, I let you walk away!"
Mordain was pissed. His body was in auto pilot.
"Marchocias! You well fucking knew who I am! You entered my mind and saw yourself!"
Richard and Roxy and had regained full control of their minds. Jason was ready to attack that thing.
"Mordain, come we need to leave." Handar said.
Mordain looked at the faun and turned around, a shield protecting him and his friends the whole time, just in case the goat decided to pull some funny tricks again.
Marchocias disappeared into the trees.
Handar led the group further on in complete silence.
"That was weird." Jason broke the silence.
"It was, we almost fell in its trap." Roxy giggled nervously.
Richard kept quiet. Mordain walked up to Richard and gave him a hug, their lips locked as Richard pulled him tighter. "I don't know what I would have done without you."
"We're even now, you saved me once, and I saved you once." Mordain smiled back at him.
Mordain pulled away from Richard.
"I have some bad news though. That was no faun." Mordain said to all of them.
Handar looked Mordain in the eyes, "I suspected as much, it was Marchocias."
"What do you mean?" Jason asked.
They started walking again; Richard and Mordain holding hands.
"He is a demon. His name really is Marchocias. When he entered my mind I could feel it.
He disguised himself as a faun and mixed in with a close by group, he put a spell, if you will; on them to make them think he is their leader. They realized what was going on when they walked into my shield; it snapped them out of their daze, which is why they left.
I couldn't kill him, because as long as he was in the faun's body he couldn't really hurt us. If I killed him, he could likely have taken his original form, and would have been 100 fold stronger.
"The veil has not crumbled yet, a demon as strong as Marchocias are able to take form of Torandia creatures, yet their physical bodies are still in hell, I don't know what would have happened should Mordain have killed the avatar, his body might have been able to slip thorough, Mordain wise move.
"Makes sense." Jason said.
"Who is Aradia? I heard him say something about that." Mordain asked.
"It's best I not answer that, all will become clear in Kegh, please be patient for now." Handar answered.
They went back to what was so familiar to them, following Handar through the trees.
Something bothered Richard about the encounter but he could not put his finger on it.
The sun was starting to hang low in the sky; the four from earth was really starting to get tired. This place was really far.
"How long do we still have to walk?" Jason asked to no one in particular.
"We have about two hours walk to Kegh; if we receive no distractions." Handar answered.
Mordain thought about what was going on, his whole life changed in the last few days. He knew they would have to go back to earth for today was Sunday, and tomorrow would still be school. He wondered how he or any of them would be able to go back to earth and lead normal lives. They would still have to write exams, do homework, and stuff like that. Mordain also realized he was getting hungry, in all the excitement they had all forgotten to eat.
"I hope Kegh has specialty food, I'm really getting hungry." Mordain said.
"Me too, my stomach has been growling nonstop the last hour or so." Richard said.
Jason and Roxy were engaged in small talk and didn't pay any mind to Richard and Mordain. Handar was walking a bit further off now.
"You were so awesome back there..." Richard said to Mordain mid walk.
"I still don't know what came over me; my body just went in to auto pilot."
"Yeah, know the feeling; same happened to me when you got hurt."
Mordain smiled at Richard.
"We make a good team" Mordain said.
"Yeah we do."
"I'm so sick of strange things happening, mostly sick of walking!" Richard said.
"I just want a comfortable bed to sleep on." Mordain answered.
Both of them laughed at how lame they sounded.
Huge gates loomed over the party.
"Wow. Kegh looks big." Roxy said.
"It is a big city by human standards."
Mordain and Richard caught up with the rest of them at the gate, Mordain's jaw dropped and Richard stopped dead in his tracks, Richard was giving Mordain a piggy back ride as Mordain was really tired and Richard was feeling sorry for him.
It was only a few minutes after sunset, so the city gates were still open.
"Well we seem to have made it in one piece." Handar said.
"Seems so." Roxy answered not able to tare her eyes away.
They walked though the gates into town, the streets were still buzzing with life. Every so now and then someone would stare at them. They weren't exactly used to seeing people like themselves around there.
Handar led the children into what looks like a pub and told them to wait here.
He would go and fetch Rughnan from the castle, as he was also adviser to the duke.
"Please try not to pull any attention to yourselves. Stay incognito." Handar asked.
"It's kind of difficult not to get attention with our clothes we have on!" Mordain answered.
Handar sighed. "Just try."
"Okay Mr. Tight up. You know we made it to Kegh. You don't have to be so boring!"
Handar just looked at him. "I am not uptight, wait here."
With that Handar handed them some coins and left the bar.
Jason looked around him; there were mostly men, dirty looking men, and women standing around trying to pick up the dirty looking men. Most of them had either a dagger or a sword or both. They all wore tunics.
"What a dodgy looking people..." Mordain gawked.
They sat down at the closest table, Roxy looked distressed, and some of the men physically stared at her.
"So this is fun." Mordain broke the silence at the table.
"I wonder what this Rughnan guy is all about. You guys know, I've been worrying, what if this organization is merely a trap or something, I feel there is going to be a huge twist in the story when we get to this guy." Jason said.
"Yeah, I've been getting that feeling a lot too, just can't place my finger on it." Mordain stared.
Richard looked at Roxy and saw how uncomfortable she was sitting there.
"Come let's see if we can get something to drink." He said to her.
Roxy walked with Richard to the bar, Mordain and Jason engaged in chit chat.
After arguing with the barman about what the hell vodka was, Richard bought everyone ale with the coins Handar gave them.
A huge man approached Roxy and Richard.
"What are you kids doing in a place like this? I don't think its very safe."
"We can take care of our selves. Trust me; I'm not scared of anyone in this place." Richard said.
Richard was a big guy by any standard, but this person standing in front of them towered over Richard and made Roxy look like a kid.
"I'm Tomas." The guy held out his hand to Richard.
"I'm Richard" Richard and Tomas shook hands.
"My dear lady, you are definitely not safe in this place, some of the men are already contemplating what they want to do to you. Your likes are a rare sight in this part of Kegh, especially in a place like this. You had best be careful."
"I'm a big girl", Roxy said to the scary looking man with a smile.
"I'll be off; look after yourselves, the world depends on you." And without waiting for a reply Tomas walked away and out of the pub.
"How did he know who we were?" Richard asked.
"Beats me. This is a strange place. Nothing surprises me any more." Roxy answered.
They headed back to the table.
"What did that big guy want with you? Hope he wasn't hitting on you Mordain said to Richard, I'll turn him into a toad!"
Richard laughed at that, "He hardly hit on any of us, he just said we must be careful, the men are apparently discussing shagging Roxy."
"Did you have to put it that way?" Roxy asked.
"Well, its true."
"He also knew who we were", Roxy changed the subject.
A guy with a lute started singing in the corner of the pub. The noise quieted down some.
"What do you mean?" Jason said.
"He said we must look after ourselves, the world depends on us." Roxy answered.
"Weird." Mordain answered.
They listened to the minstrel for a while, he was singing about exploring some remote corner of Torandia.
"Who knew a place like this existed, this was supposed to only exist in the mind of authors, its amazing thinking about it." Mordain said to no one in particular.
No one answered everyone just sat in silence and listened to the soothing music.
The door slammed open and a big scary guy and a few other men walked in.
Mordain and his friends paid no notice. The whole bar quieted down, Jason noticed the whole bar was staring at them; the minstrel continued singing but looked at them out of the corner of his eyes.
"Uhm, guys I think we have company." Jason said.
The big guy that walked in to the bar tapped Mordain on his shoulder, well, less the tap than a knock.
"Ouch dude, what do you want?" Mordain said turning around.
"This is our table." The big guy said with a funny accent.
"Yeah well, first come first served." Mordain replied, "You can sit somewhere else tonight."
The big guy started laughing, "This one is a fool." He pulled a dagger out of his belt and started plying with it, his friends started snickering.
Mordain rolled his eyes at the guy, "Get lost dude, we don't want trouble, you can sit somewhere else tonight."
"One last chance, the guy said, clearly growing angry, "Leave our table, you can leave the pretty little girl right here and we won't give you any trouble."
"Fuck off!" Roxy shouted at the man standing up from the table.
"Oh isn't she feisty." The man said walking over to Roxy.
The pub was as quiet as a mouse; everybody seemed scared of these people.
The guy grabbed Roxy's hair and pulled her back. "Very pretty, we'll be having fun tonight!"
Jason stood up from the table, pulled out his sword and pointed it at the man's neck.
"If you prefer living put her fuck down!"
Mordain had never seen Jason so angry. Three of the other guys approached Mordain.
"You messed with the wrong people tonight. Kiss your pathetic life goodbye."
A guy with a mean looking eye patch said pulling out a knife.
"Leave this pathetic low life to me!" Roxy said to Jason.
"Go help out your brother and Richard, they look out numbered. Try not to destroy everything please."
The guy was still holding onto Roxy's hair.
"So you want to have fun tonight hey?" Roxy said through a strained voice.
"Perhaps you'll like to see, just how much fun I can be!" Roxy said feeling changing form into a very large ogre, her voice changed, her skin turned green, she looked exactly like she remembered the ogres.
They guy's face turned pale, he was no longer holding on to Roxy's hair, but staring at the large grotesque humanoid creature now standing before him in the place of the heretofore pretty girl.
"What the fuck!" He spat.
The other guys saw what was happening on the other side of the table and made a run for it, the guy who menaced Roxy also bolted for the door, all of them thinking the same thing, if the frail girl could have done that, what could the rest of her friends do.
They sat back down at the table, Roxy back to her human form; the pub as quiet as the mouse, and suddenly seeming a lot emptier than before.
"I don't think I'll ever get used to that. Roxy mumbled sitting down.
"Me neither, Mordain said, I don't like seeing you change, the way your skin bubbles and sort of tears open. Is it painful?"
"No I don't feel it, it's sort of like taking a hot bath, the same feeling on your skin."
"I wonder how long Handar and this Rughnan guy is going to be, I sort of want to go and sleep, it's been a long day. Plus I think the people in the bar are a bit freaked out by what happened just now." Richard said
The sun has disappeared over what they have come to know as the Sojet Mountains.
There was a cool breeze in the air, they could feel it through the walls of the pub, this was going to be a long night, all of them felt it, but said nothing as they conversed back into conversation... There was something not right, they could all feel it in their guts, their powers have been a lot more unstable for the passed few hours, no one said anything about it, and it was if a circle was not complete.
Handar burst into the doors of the pub and saw it was nearly empty, a tall bearded man walked behind him, who reminded Mordain a lot of Dumbledore.
"What did you do? This place has never been this empty before." was the first thing Handar asked towards Mordain; Rughnan standing quietly beside him.
"Why do you immediately suspect us, and even more, why me?" Mordain said glancing over at the old man.
"Because in the last few days I have come to know you guys; especially you."
"For your information, it was Roxy over there, huge guys hassled us about being in their seat, and Roxy scared them off."
"How did she do that?" The old man asked in a raspy voice.
"She turned into an Ogre and growled at them." Jason answered suspiciously at the old man.
"Are we to assume you are Rughnan?" Richard asked taking a sip of his drink.
"I am. We have to leave; you made quite the ruckus here. People are generally not used to seeing beautiful girls like yourself turning into grotesque beasts."
Roxy snorted and stood up. "Well since we've been in a hurry since we got here; let's go do this meeting thing so we can get some shut eye. Hopefully back on earth."
"Yeah, as comfortable as the ground is around here, I prefer my duck feather pillow and my down duvet back home." Mordain said sarcastically getting up.
Richard and Jason glanced at each other and shrugged, "Women." Richard said, which earned him death's stare form Mordain.
They walked on the dirt path toward seemingly nowhere, led by Handar, Rughnan.
Jason was with them, he always needed to know what was going on, and where they were going.
Richard and Mordain tripped each other, held hands, going on like a new relationship.
Roxy was deep in thought way at the back of the group.
No need worrying about everything, she thought, it'll all work out, they seem legit, I mean they haven't lied to us yet, and I feel energy in my veins that has never been there.
I know I can fend for myself. I just need to learn how to control the forms I change into, the last few times have just been by chance that I got the appropriate form for that time, next time I know I might not be as lucky. What if something tries to bash me and I turn into a tree or something. Things like that, I need to find the trigger for my power.
Jason has his, its just basically uber good fighting skills, Mordain has the sprite problem but he seems to be able to control his power, Richard as I understand it just calls a specific animal with a voice in his head and see if the respond to his need. Me, I get angry or any over emotion and I feel hot water running over my skin like an electric current and a change. How can I start to control that? What if I screw up soon or something horrible. She tried to remember how exactly she transformed the previous times and could not remember, she tried to change into a dog, something easy, she thought, to no avail.
Unbeknownst to her the others also thought the same, none of them really knew how to control their power, which ultimately will lead them to be ticking time bombs.
"Roxy!" Mordain shouted again.
"Huh?" Roxy shook her head emerging out of her deep train of thought.
"You were space out for the whole way, I thought you disappeared! Then I felt power radiating from you, and saw you were totally out of it, so I checked on you, we're here by the way.
They just lowering the gate, what were you thinking about anyway?"
"We'll discuss it later; let's just get this meeting thing behind us. Its just a few things that's worrying me."
Mordain snorted and looked over at the other four waiting for the gate to lower.
"We all have worries which I think best get out in the open soon. I have a bad feeling.
"Me too."
The castle was big, surrounded by a moat, and a wall, the duke of Kegh resides in there, Rughnan as the royal adviser also stays there. The gate dropped and they walked in, following the odd looking man with the long beard into what they felt was becoming a dark future.