A cool breeze swept across the sparsely covered landscape carrying with it the gentle scents of spring. The small creatures of the desert nestled in that perfect morning, relaxing in the sweet hushed harmony and enjoying the shade of the few growing things around them.
That is, until a scream whipped through the air, stirring the trees and sending small animals whimpering for cover.
"AHHHHH I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOO HUNGRY!!!!!!" Lina wailed, her hands clutched over her stomach. "We're miles from any town, stuck in a desert and we don't have anything to eat!"
"Say, Lina, why are we in the desert?" Gourry asked, heedless of the look in the red eyes of his irate companion. "Let's go back to that town and get something to eat!"
"What town?! We haven't seen a town in two days!" She said, punctuating her point with a punch to his midsection. "If we weren't lost, we could find a town!!"
"Uh, Miss Lina?" Amelia ventured softly. "Weren't you the one with the directions?"
Lina's face creased into a storm of fury as she whirled towards Amelia. The younger sorceress skipped back, her face cringing.
"WHAT WAS THAT?!" Lina yelled.
"Nothing!" Amelia replied, shutting her eyes and stepping just out of Lina's grasp.
Lina took a step, but then her anger subsided as her hunger pangs overpowered her. Her eyes sunk a bit, as her whole body seemed to shrink into itself. "Oh! I can't take it any more...who cares about Sairaag? I just want to EAT! Why can't a girl get a decent meal anymore!"
"Uh, Lina, we just had a decent meal with those Theatre folk!" Gourry said cheerfully "Let's go back there!"
Amelia and Lina turned to stare at him, their faces astonished by his suggestion.
"Did you forget what happened already?" Lina asked slowly.
"Mr. Gourry, we were attacked by Zangulus and Vrumugun and the whole theatre was destroyed!!" Amelia exclaimed in a rush.
"Oh yeah...heh heh...." Gourry said laughing. "Well, the food was good!" He smiled, and then wondered why the two women looked about to collapse.
"Oh what are we going to do...." Lina groaned. Suddenly her head perked up. Gourry mimicked her a second later.
"Is something the matter Miss Lina?" Amelia said. Her head spun from side to side, as a slight wind fluttered her cape "Miss Lina? Mr. Gourry? Where did you go!!"
Following the cloud of dust raised by her companions haste, Amelia walked a short distance to where a man sat watching Lina and Gourry shovel stew into their faces.
"Amelia muble, slurp slurp Stew slurp slurp here" Lina mumbled around her food.
"Ah! Young miss, you too are welcome to share my food." The old man smiled, and took out a bowl and leaned over the huge pot. "I was making enough for a week,so I have more than enough to spare and share---" He stopped short and the bowl dropped into the pot. A clanging sound rang out as the bowl hit the empty metal of the dish.
"I'm afraid your companions have consumed it all!" He whined. "I didn't even have any!"
"Well, it did need more salt!" Lina sighed contentedly. "You can remember that when you make the next batch. But enough talk, you ready Gourry?!" She stood. "Come on Amelia, let's get to Sairaag."
"Why you!" Swore the old man as he sputtered looking from his missing meal to the departing figures. "What did you think this was? The Pot of Plenty? Come back here!"
"Thanks again!" Lina called with a wink over her shoulder. She stopped suddenly and whipped around. "A Pot of Plenty? What do you know of one?"
" Hmmmph" The Old man grunted.
"What's that Lina?" Gourry asked.
"An old legend, of a mystical pot that always stays full with whatever you put in it! They say the ancient God of Light used this pot to save the ancient desert city of Kordool from starvation...But most people do not even remember the legend, let alone where to find the City...They say that when the city was destroyed, the Pot was buried with it! Just think if we had the Pot of Plenty!" She sighed, her eyes growing large and soft as she dreamed of how life would be. Hazily she formed the picture of a large castle, heaps of gold, servants, and never ending piles of food all springing from the pot.
"The Pot of Plenty...." Gourry sighed as well, his eyes also tracing an unseen dream. That is, they grew slightly larger and more vacant, until he turned to Lina. "Yeah, but why would we want something like that?!"
Lina groaned and pushed him away.
"How do you know of the legend?!" Lina asked pointing a finger at the departing figure of the old man. "You're from Kordool aren't you?"
He turned around, his monkey like face more twisted with anger.
"Leave me alone!" He complained. "Haven't you done enough to me already!" He began to turn to leave.
"Oh no!" Lina said, as she concentrated "Fireball!" A small sphere of fire shot out and smashed into the ground beside the old man, who began to jump to get the flames out of his tunic.
"Hey, that's hot!" He whined.
"So you were saying, about Kordool? I thought I recognized your accent!" Lina's eyes gleamed with the hint of an unspelled flare arrow.
The old man noticed that, and sighed. "I never lived there, but my great grandfather did ... the legend of the cursed Kordool Pot has been handed down generation to generation.." The old man said. "Its just an expression now for someone who eats too much!"
"HEY!" Lina shouted. "Flare Arrow!"
The attack smashed beside the man who jumped.
"Cursed?! I thought the God of Light gave those to save the city!" Amelia asked, distracting Lina's attention.
"Ah, young Miss...so the legend goes. But my ancestors found that the Pot itself was cursed when used by humans. After the famine ended, people began to fight for possession of it, to be able to make whatever they wanted. People began to misuse the pot, until the city was destroyed. No one knows what became of the Pot. I don't think you'll find anything there."
"No one ever looked! The way I heard it, everyone was so convinced the Pot was cursed, they decided to let it stay buried....but if I could find the City, I could find the Pot!" Lina declared. "You've got to tell us where it is."
"I'm the last of Kordoolial descendent..." The old man said, sitting down. "My ancient heritage sadly fades with every wrinkle on this old head, every lost white hair...."
"Get to the point!" Lina ordered. "Is it around here or what!"
"I was on a pilgrimage to the ancient city." The old man continued. "It is in that valley just between those hills. But there is nothing left! It is a sacred spot and you must not disturb it!"
"No problem, pops!" Lina winked. "Thanks again! Ok, let's get to that valley!"
The three adventurers sped off down the road, as the old man frantically waived his hands. "But wait, I didn't tell you about the curse! If you do find it....you have to be careful, because whatever you first put in it, is what you're stuck with!"
"There, this must be it!" Lina announced as they climbed over a rock and stood facing the valley. Gourry sighed and sat down at the foot of the rock. Despite the arid land through which they'd been travelling, they found themselves staring at an Oasis of lush green vegetation.
"Wow its so beautiful!" Amelia exclaimed as she perched on the rock. Below them a stream meandered through a field of flowers, as huge tufts of grass whispered to themselves. Large palm trees dotted the landscape here and there.
"Enough admiring the scenery, let's find that pot!" Lina ordered.
"I thought you said the city was in a desert?" Amelia asked as her small face contorted in confusion.
"Things change over time, Amelia." Lina replied. "But this is where the old man said to go. We're just wasting time up here--lets go!"
The three ran down the steep slope into the heart of the beautiful valley. "Ok, now we've just got to locate some of the signs of the ancient city, and then maybe we can start to see where this Pot is!" Lina said.
"But, Miss Lina, however are you going to find it here--this is a pretty big area!" Amelia complained.
"Then we'll just have to split up and search!" Lina declared. "Besides, its a magical item...I should be able to sense its exact location if I try hard enough."
"How do you know its even still here, Lina?" Gourry asked confused.
Lina ignored him, as she concentrated feeling for the magic.
"Uh, Miss Lina?" Amelia gasped.
"Not now, Amelia. I'm concentrating." Lina admonished her young friend. She shut her eyes tight, trying to feel the tingle of magic in the surroundings. To her surprise she felt a tangled skein of magic threads, as if everything around her was made of magic. In fact, something rather large was emanating much magic just to her--She smelled something foul and looked up as Amelia shrieked her name again.
A huge monster with shaggy hair covering a wide body,and a long trunk enhanced with sharp teeth poised to strike, stood in front of her.
She didn't even have time for a fireball, she realized.
A flash of white light swung through her vision, as a curtain of silky blond hair washed over her. The motion sent her falling, landing smack down on her backside.
"Got it!" Gourry cheered, as he squatted down to stare at the beast. It's trunk lay squirming on the ground a few feet from the rest of its body, a dark stain soaking the brown fur covering its surface.
Gourry leaned over a bit more to examine his handiwork. This brought his rear end directly in front of Lina's face. The dark red of embarrasment mixed with anger spread across her face.
"DO YOU MIND!?" Lina yelled shoving him forward and onto the monster.
"HEY!!!!" Gourry yelled as he scrambled off the furry beast. "What was that for!?" His head swivelled down scanning his clothes that luckily remained unstained.
Lina didn't answer him, but looked over at the creature.
"What is it, Miss Lina?!" Amelia asked.
"A Wolphephant." She replied. "A magical creature so dangerous that only the most experienced wizards dare summon one..."
"Oh!" Amelia exclaimed. "Its so hideous!" She shivered. "Who would make that? It's so UGLY!" She whined.
"But very tasty!" Lina declared smiling. "They're considered quite a delicacy..and from the looks of it, there have been plenty of these things wandering around here!" She pointed to a field of bones on the other side of the stream, near a cave.
"You mean there are more!" Amelia cringed, the soft hairs on her skin rising up as she shivered. "I don't want to fight that thing!"
"Seems like that was the last one...the others would have attacked by now. They usually keep in close packs." Lina explained. "So there's nothing to worry about!" She winked "Except how we want to cook dinner!"
"EEEEEK" Amelia shrieked as she narrowly dodged out of the way of a huge snake. "Flame Arrow" As the attack hit, the creature blew into a few dozen pieces.
"AMELIA!" Lina scowled. "Why did you do that!? That's a Drum-snake. If you hadn't blown it to pieces like that we could have eaten that too!"
"But it was gonna eat me!" Amelia responded.
"AYYYYYHA" Gourry grunted as he swung his sword into the heart of another strange creature. "Take THAT!"
"Gourry! What did you do that for!?" Lina asked turning around "That was just a Crog...they make good pets, but you can't eat them. They're really good at fishing though...." She sighed and looked at the small furry frog looking creature. "See, it was just gathering a mound of fish." She pointed to the small pile next to the slain creature.
"Uh, sorry, guess I got carried away!" Gourry shrugged. "I figured it was something else we could eat!"
"Why are there so many of these creepy things?" Amelia asked, still visibly shaken from the unnatural animals around her.
"I think this could be the work of the Pot of Plenty. Perhaps the Kordoolians decided to reproduce whole creatures rather than processed foods...After all, legends say that the Kordoolians fought over what to put inside the Pot. They must have experimented with several different creatures."
"And things...Miss Lina, look at all this gold!" Amelia called pointing to a huge mound of gold pieces all exactly alike.
"GOLD? GOLD?!" Lina's eyes became dangerously wide, as she and Gourry turned and ran towards the piles. Lina began to dive into it, until she stopped short with an "OUCH."
"All this treasure!"She sang, grabbing fistfuls of it. The gold danced in her red eyes, as her hair swung over the gold.
Gourry paused for a second, his eyes locked in either horror or admiration, or both, of the picture Lina made caressing the gold.
"Lina, how do you expect to carry it away? There is just too much of it!" Amelia asked, as she tried to get Lina's attention. "Besides, shouldn't we leave this gold for the Kordoolian people?!"
"What Kordoolian people? That old man was the last one, and besides, there is nothing wrong with taking piles of gold that are left unguarded!"
"There isn't?" Amelia scrunched her eyebrows down, as the inflection in her whine grew. She didn't really believe Lina, but then, she wanted to trust her because she wanted to be her friend. At least, Amelia sighed, she believed that somewhere deep down (well hidden and very deep down) that Lina was, if not a good person, at least not a truly evil one. Maybe if Amelia tried, she could bring Lina to the ways of Justice by her own example--surely a grander task she could not imagine. She had to convince Lina that the gold had to stay in the Valley. "But..." She started again, pausing to think of just the right line of argument. Noble reasons rushed through her, swelling her with the passion of the cause of justice. She knew she was right, and that once she spoke, she'd convince Lina! "BUT--" She stopped.
She suddenly realized her companions were already leaving the valley.
"Hey wait...put that back!" She shouted as she started after them. She ran, suddenly stumbling in the cold waters of the stream.
"NO ....Way" Lina managed between short breaths. "I'm not stopping!"
"But...but...what about the Pot!?" Amelia said resorting to another tactic than the to get them to stop.
Lina halted, for half a second. "With this much gold, who cares about the pot!?" Lina shouted over a bag of gold on her shoulder. "Just a little farther..."She grunted and kept moving. "Come on Amelia."
"I am...but...Oh no...I'm stuck!" Amelia shouted as she splashed toward the ground, her cape billowing out and spreading on the water like a leaf. "Hey Guys!" She gurgled from the stream bed.
"You'll catch up..." Lina gasped as she tugged. Even Gourry, loade up with huge sacks looked a little overwhelmed.
"Do you think we should put it down, and help her?" Gourry asked.
"Even for you that is a dumb question!" Lina exclaimed. "Come on Amelia, why don't you help out."
"I'd really like to but---AIEYYYYYYYY" She screamed. "Its a monster!"
Lina whirled around, as Gourry dropped his bags.
Sure enough, a large green dragonheaded and footed fish was sniffing Amelia. Its long tongue reached out and slid a slimy trail up her arm as she shrieked too shocked and grossed out to even fire a spell.
"RAY WING" Lina called as she flew down the hill side up to the monster. "DIGGER BOLT" She shouted and the monster emitted a high pitched whine and fell over.
"Oh Miss Lina, you saved me!" Amelia said thankfully. She stood up, and took a step forward. "Ouch, I lost my boots" She bent in the water feeling for the lost articles. "Where is it...this stream is so much stronger and deeper here, I can't see it!"
Lina winked and said "You fish for that, and I'm cutting into a snack!" She began to kneel to examine the fallen beast. "Another edible beast..." She sighed. "One of my favorites..."
"Hey, Amelia, is this it?" Gourry smiled as he began to pull up all kinds of random clothing from the stream/river: clogs, glass heels, hiking boots, tennis shoes, ice skates, and other objects, like goblets, backpacks, pots, jewelry. She shook her head at each one, in between her own explorations.
"Oh good, I found the left one, now I just need the right one." She said at last.
Gourry nodded, and handed her a soft leather boot, soaking with water, "This has got to be it!" He smiled.
"I already found the left one Gourry, so it can't be mine!" She said looking at her feet, and then back at the boot.
"Oh, yeah. How about this one?" He pulled another tiny boot out of the river. "Or this?"
"Its the same side boot, Gourry, I need the right one!" She said. "Here it is."
"And here's another one!" Gourry smiled handing her another left patterned boot.
"That is still left!" She looked down at the collection of left boots. "They're exactly like mine!"
Lina frowned. "She may be clumsy, but she doesn't need more than two left boots...There's something wrong about all this. Its exactly the same boot as Amelia's, but where did it come from?"
"The river!" Gourry said. He pulled out another boot to demonstrate.
Lina's eyes narrowed and she waded into the water. One gloved hand rose up then down splashing into the water furiously. Suddenly her hand grabbed onto something small and round. A dim, copper-colored pot emerged from the water, a leather booth stuck inside of it.
She pulled it out. "An Amelia sized boot, left foot." She said tossing it over with the others,but accidently hitting Gourry.
Amelia sighed looking at the small collection of them. "What'll I do with all these left boots?"
"Fill them with the gold I'm going to make with this pot of plenty!" Lina exclaimed. "This is it, it has to be!"
"Miss Lina, you can't use this object for something like that!"
"You can't stop me, you've already had your turn and made boots."
"That was an accident!" Amelia responded. "There are so many people starving, you can't waste it on--"
Lina sighed. "Gold? With this much gold we'll never starve again! Besides, its my pot and I'll..."
She paused. "What am I going to do with it? I have to make whatever I put in it special." She set the pot down, to try and think. "I don't want to get sick of the food I put in it...hm...this is harder than I thought! On the other hand, I wouldn't have to carry all that heavy gold, just a never ending pot of it!" She paused. "I wouldn't have to scrounge for treasure if I use this right..Who'd care about Sairaag, and this challenge...I could buy everyone off..." Her voice trailed off, the excitement vanishing as she said the words. "With this pot, I could stop adventuring and..." Suddenly her imagination supplied her with the picture of exactly what she would be doing, surrounded by gold in her own castle, an endless table of food surrounding her. Was that what she wanted? "I could even duplicate the sword of Light, so I could send Gourry on his way...." She thought at last.
Her coppery eyes went as dull and dark as the tarnished pot which fell from her hands onto the grounds.
"Hey, Lina, its kind of dirty now!" Gourry said picking it up. "Don't worry, I"ll wash it!" He smiled, dipping it in the river. For a second, the thought flashed through his mind that he could use the pot himself, but he promptly ignored it like he did most thoughts. He couldn't even begin to come up with something to put in the Pot, and besides, whatever Lina would do with it would probably make him happier. That is, as long as he could help her do it. Out loud he said, "A little river water and it'll be--"
"GOURRY--NO! DON"T!" Lina exclaimed too late, suddenly becomming aware of him and his actions.
He smiled and turned the pot over to dip the water out.
And out, and out and out! A puzzled look formed on his face as he realized the pot was still full of water.
He grinned and said. "No way this pot is going to beat me!" He began to rapidly turn it over, so that more and more water came out. After awhile, he stopped exhausted as the water continued to flow out of the pot.
"How's there so much water in this thing?" He asked as he wiped a bead of sweat mixed into the threads of his hair.
Amelia paled and looked at Lina. "Did he do what I think he did?"
Lina nodded.
Just then, the water began to back up inside the pot, and a spread of water began to gush out like a geyser from the sides of the pot, splintering it and rapidly creating a flood of water on the fairly rocky and dry land.
"Quick, lets get out of here before we drown!" Amelia cried as the water bobbed up to her waste. "Ray Wing" She shouted as the two grabbed Gourry between them springing up into the air.
"HEY--What happened?!" Gourry asked confused as they soared away from the valley.
"You idiot!" Lina complained. "You just put a river in a pot of plenty!"
"A river?! All I did was wash it!"
"With river water...no wonder they say it was cursed. You put something in, and it takes what you put in it literally..." Amelia sighed. Down below in the river, a few white boots danced along in the fading sunlight.
"When you filled it, you told the pot to make a river. When you dumped it out the first time, you somehow triggered it to create another river though it wasn't finished producing the first one. So now you've got it making multiple rivers... It'll stop eventually...." Lina sighed. "After all our gold and the whole valley washes away, and the pot is shattered forever."
They slowly descended towards the ground on top of the mountain, Gourry landing with a thump.
"But wouldn't it stop if you put something in?" Gourry asked as he rubbed his back where he'd smacked down. "I guess we could still find it in the water if we tried, just like Amelia did the first time!"
"No way!" Lina said with her usual irritation. "Even if you didn't destroy it, its buried forever under that lake! If I found it underwater, the spell would activate and produce multiple lakes! Its gone forever. I've lost my chance to have it all....to retire from all this endless questing, and fighting and hunger..." The dream of the castle of gold, the multiple swords of light, the endless dinners splintered into a mosaic of fragments in her mind, as the scene in front of her replaced it. She looked briefly at Amelia, a little longer at Gourry, and then turned around in the general direction of Sairaag.
"Are you ok, Miss Lina?" Amelia asked slightly confused by hearing that sort of a hopeless tone from Lina.
Gourry stepped forward, one hand outstretched as if to touch her, but he hesitated and put the hand through his hair instead.
"Uh, I'm sorry about that, Lina." He said softly. "I hope you're not angry that we're back where we started." He cringed awaiting the explosion of her anger.
"Its gone forever....and I was so close." She whispered more to herself than in reply to Gourry. "So close to ending this journey..."
"Miss Lina, what would you have put in it anyway?" Amelia asked, curious at the strange note in Lina's voice.
"Does it matter?" They couldn't see Lina's face nor the relieved smile on her face as she said "Let's concentrate on what is important...FOOD. Come on, let's get to the next town before they stop serving dinner!" She turned around and gave them her characteristic arrogant wink. "Or do you want to stay here all night?!"
The other two looked at each other shrugged and followed after her.