After dinner was done with they all retired to their bedrolls and went to sleep. Zelgadis had first watch.
No one had tried to question Rena or Zelgadis further about what had happened in the meadow. They had said they couldn't remember what had happened so they left it at that.
Xellos and Zeros has disappeared for the night not that anyone cared much. They didn't care where those two had gone, just provided it was very far away. One trickster priest was bad enough two was insane.
Zelgadis while on his watch sat in front of the fire idly tending to it.
Rena lay pretending to be sleeping while secretly watching Zelgadis. Ever since his and Rena's little talk by the riverside he hadn't said a word to her. All through dinner he ate staring off into space lost in his own thoughts.
He said I could trust him... But I guess soon it wont matter. Rena closed her eyes but she had no intensions of sleeping. After that event in the meadow she was a little hesitant to fall asleep.
"Having trouble sleeping Rena?" Zelgadis asked quietly not even looking her direction.
Rena sighed and sat up. "You knew I was awake?"
"I could feel you staring at me."
Neither said anything after that. They both sat in silence.
"Sorry if I bothered you." Rena apologized.
Another spell of silence passed through.
"Do you think he'll do it again?"
Rena shook her head. "No, he's made his point. I doubt he'll do anything for now." Rena sighed. That's what she hoped. "But I may be wrong you know. Though I'm not ungrateful what you tried to do, but you shouldn't have. Because now you may be a target." Or you may have been a target right from when I first met you. And everyone else.
"Well then tell me about him so that I might be a little prepared if he decides to come after me."
"If he decides to come after you, then you'll be dead. There's no stopping him. The less you know the better off you are."
"I can handle myself."
"Not against him. No one is safe." Rena said in a deadpan voice.
"You'd better some sleep, you're going to have the next watch." Zelgadis said as he went back to tending the fire.
Rena sighed and went back to her bedroll. It's going to be a long night.
Xellos and Zeros teleported to Zeros master's lair waiting to speak with Greater Beast. She had summoned both Zeros and Xellos.
"Master you wanted to see us?" Zeros and Xellos greeted Greater Beast Zellas kneeling before her.
"Stand up." She commanded.
The two trickster priests complied and Greater Beast walked over and examined both of them.
"Interesting... Almost exact copies of each other. What do you have to report?"
"As you already know doubles from another dimension are here to complete a task. At the moment they are traveling to Vallases to see one of Lina Inverse's laboratories."
"Has there been any complications?"
"Someone attacked Lina Inverse through a dream. Could have killed her too. The chimera went into her dream to help her. She seems fine."
"Good." Greater Beast darkly chuckled.
"Master do you know what Lina Inverse is?" Zeros asked with a frown.
"You mean you don't know Xellos? That's a little surprising. But then she is part of an interesting band of people. Be careful, that great enemy of hers is very resourceful. He's already killed quite a few high-leveled monsters with no trouble." Zellas warned them.
"Any new orders Master?"
"No continue to tag along on their travels and report back on their progress."
"Yes Master."
Rena once again didn't wake the person for third watch. She sat up letting everyone sleep as she did both watches. She did need sleep, but not that much.
Once morning came Rena got things prepared for the group for breakfast before they woke up. At the smell of food Garry, Gourry, Gavin and Lina were the first to wake up.
Breakfast like any meal was an ordeal with this group of people. There was constant bickering over food, which almost turned into a fierce little battle.
Rena had managed to get away with not eating breakfast again by claiming she had eaten before they got up. If it had not been for the food feuds Rena might have been grilled further about what she had eaten for breakfast. Luckily she didn't have to explain further and she got away with it.
After breakfast was done and they were all packed up they went back trekking to Vallases. Xellos and Zeros still hadn't shown themselves since their disappearance the night before that didn't stop the others from leaving without them.
About after an hour and a half's worth of travel the two trickster priests reappeared.
"Where were you two?"
"It's a -- " The two of them both started to say before they got cut off.
"Secret."
Rena ignored them and continued to concentrate on her maps. Still she or the others hadn't come across a single marker yet. Gah this is frustrating!
"How's going Rena?"
Rena snapped back to reality and looked to see Gavin standing next her peering at the map.
"Not as well as I'd like."
"Are we lost?"
"As far as I can tell we aren't. I'm having trouble following the map but I have no indication whether my older map is correct. We should have passed quite a few trail markers by now that signifies that Vallases is nearby. But I haven't seen any of them! Grrr..." Rena was getting so angry with the maps that she wanted to break something. Or blow something up.
"Well how much longer till we reach Vallases?"
"Less then a day if I'm following this correctly and my map is right."
"Then we'll see when we get there." Gavin's voice was full of optimism as usual.
Rena couldn't help but laugh.
Hours later they stopped to eat lunch by the riverside so that they could have fish. Or at least that was the plan.
"What the hell is wrong here?! I never have this much trouble fishing before!" Lina fumed in frustration.
"Maybe you are loosing your touch." Gourry suggested while already get into their packed food.
"HEY GET OUT OF THERE!" Lina yelled smacking Gourry on the head.
"But I'm hungry!"
"So I don't care! You can't just dip into our supplies!"
"Garry is doing it." Gourry pointed to Garry who had already gone through their bags and was already eating.
"AHHHH!!!"
Everyone sweatdropped.
After getting both Garry and Gourry away from the packed food Lina went back to try and fish but she wasn't successful. Not a single fish was biting and Lina was even using her special fishing techniques.
"Why is Miss Lina having so much trouble fishing? Normally she'd have a whole bunch by now, but she hasn't caught anything!" Amelia frowned.
"Well this isn't our world Amelia so maybe the fish here respond differently." Zel suggest taking a look at the river. It wasn't stagnant water and the river look fine enough for fish but Zel couldn't see a single one. He scoop up a handful of water and took a sip of it. Immediately after taking a sip Zel had to spit it out. "I think I know why no fish are biting Lina."
"What's wrong?"
Zel went to go to his canteen to wash out the taste. "The water has a funny taste to it. In fact it tastes awful. There's something wrong with it, though I don't know what. So chances are there isn't any fish in that river at all."
Lina pouted. "But I wanted fish for lunch..." Lina whined. "But I wonder what's wrong with the water... It looks fine."
"I wouldn't suggest trying it."
Lina sighed. "Alright let's eat!" Lina declared diving into the packs.
After lunch they got back to traveling.
"According to the map, Vallases should be less then two hours away." Rena notified everyone as they walked up a slight upward hill in their path.
Gavin looked around at the woods. He didn't know why but he felt like something was wrong. It was a feeling that had been building up for a few hours now. At the beginning it had been a slight uneasiness now he felt some foreboding feeling, as they got closer to Vallases. The trees in the area looked darker and much more unhealthy then the trees earlier on in the trail. And there didn't seem to be an animal in sight. It made Gavin shiver.
Once they reached the top of the hill they were all surprised at the sight in front of them. For miles all plant life in the valley area below where all either dead or dying. Shriveled up plants were everywhere and whatever trees that remained were black and looked like stone.
"What happened here?"
"All life is gone from this area..." Sylphy's voice was soft as she stared in horror.
"What do you mean?"
"It's like something has come here and sucked all the life this land had to offer. And then it poisoned the remains."
"Well I think we know why there was no fish in the river." Lina commented cryptically.
"How could someone do this?" Ameria cried out.
"Some creatures feed off life, and some magic spells absorb life. So it could have been done a number of ways." Rena replied and looked around. She saw a warning to travelers not to tread through this area. "It a taboo, Cursed Land of Death... bad fate befalls those who dare tread it. If you value life turn back or you shall be damned!" Rena read the warning.
"That's a bad omen!" Amelia declared. "But how did you read that Miss Rena?" She couldn't recognize the language the warning had been written in.
Rena shrugged. "I've learned lots of things on my travels. Don't remember where I learned this one but I can read it." Rena sighed before walking down the hill past the warning sign.
"Where are you going?!"
"Well Vallases is that way. If we want to reach it before we eat dinner we have to get going."
"But the warning!"
"Is only a piece of plywood with some words carved into it. We don't know who put that sign up and for what reason. Might have just been some superstitious locals trying to warn travelers needlessly. Or maybe someone's trying to keep travelers out for some strange reason. Either way we wont find out till we go. And if you want to let your superstitions cloud your judgment then you can stay here and wait for us to get back." Rena continued walking.
Lina, Zel, Zelgadis, Gourry, and Garry followed behind. Sylphy, Sylphiel, Gavin, Amelia and Ameria were hesitant but eventually followed.
It truly was a valley of death. There wasn't any life left in the land it was all dead. It gave everyone chills as they walked. Well almost everyone.
Rena didn't care for the sight around them. It didn't bother her to see this absence of life in the slightest. It wasn't that she was uncaring of life or anything it's just that she's seen things worse then this far too many times before. Her mind was more thinking of what happened here and who did it and for what purpose.
Last time I went to Vallases it wasn't like this... So what happened here? I guess though this would explain why no one knows about Vallases now. All travelers that would have come by would have heeded the taboo's warning and not venture any closer towards Vallases.
As they walked they saw the river the fed into the other area from before with the lack of fish. Instead of the water being crystal clear it was literately black. It looked like oil or tar but still had the consistency of water. More so the water was poisoned thus resulting in no fish. In all this absence of life they did see a few birds flying in the air. It didn't give them any comfort because they were vultures flying circling above them.
"We should be close, it should just be past those trees." Rena said while consulting her maps.
Vallases turned out to be a large stretch of land with old crumbled down buildings. It looked like the town had been destroyed in a fight with lots of powerful magic. The area was filled with thick aura of dark energy of residual magic essence. And Vallases was right in the middle of it.
"So that's why the area around here looks devoid of life. Whatever magic used to destroy this place must have sucked all the energy the land around the town. I wonder who was fighting what here and who won." Lina concluded while examining the area.
"From the looks of it I'd say the bad guys did."
Rena rolled up her maps and put them back in her cloak. There were no use to her now, she needed to find her laboratory by memory. The question is, is it still intact and can I still remember where it is? Damnit it's going to be hard to find the place even if I can remember! All the town landmarks have been destroyed!
"Can we hurry up and get to the laboratory? The energy of this place is making me nauseous." Gavin requested while fighting the urge to throw up.
Rena nodded and started to wander around. If her laboratory's barrier was still intact then it should be standing plus the area around it should dispel some of the dark aura. So all she needed to do was find the area where the aura was weak. Luckily part of the town's temple was still in tack so she was able to use that as a focal point. To her left she saw part of the prayer statue near the temple. If that's to the left of me and the temple is in the front of me then the entrance to my laboratory should be to the right of me.
She walked to her right and the aura change was faint but she found the spot. "Everyone over here!" Rena motioned for them to join her.
"I feel a little better..." Gavin noted as nausea started to dissipate.
"So where is it?"
"Under that." Rena pointed to the large mass of trees that fallen in a pile. Strangely enough the trees had turned into stone like the other trees from before. Only these themselves seemed to have a strange aura to them and they had all joined together in a solidified mass. And this wasn't the only pile of trees, there were many scattered across the ruins.
"There's no way we'd be able to move that by hand." Zel concluded.
"Then let's use magic! FIREBALL!" Lina yelled and shot a nicely aimed fireball in the direction of the petrified trees. But strangely enough the trees absorbed the magic. "Hey what gives?! Alright then I'll just use a more powerful -- "
"No Miss Lina, don't! It's the after effects to the magic used here. It's acting as a magic vacuum. It's absorbing whatever destructive magic is thrown at it."
"Then who the hell do we get at it?!"
"Simple, use a healing spell. Would you four mind?" Rena asked Amelia, Ameria, Sylphy and Sylphiel. The four of them cast healing spells and the trees turned from stone back to wood.
"Now you can fireball it."
Lina grinned. "FIREBALL!"
With the trees out of the way Rena went to where the opening of the laboratory should be. She took off the cross necklace she was wearing and placed it on a stone slab with an indentation in it. The cross fit perfectly into the indentation and stone ground opened to reveal a stairway under the town's streets. "Well shall we go?"
Chapter 12 | Story Index | Fanfiction