The Obsidian Tale
~ Merridian Laboratory – western sector ~
The group of eight were in a bind.
Hazel was facing Felix, now ready to take out her bow and arrows while Felix
was on the ground, shaking. He seemed unable to control his will to speak about
what he wanted to say.
She pointed her bow towards Felix.
Lydia tried to nudge her but she was only pushed aside.
“Hazel, please don’t do this. He’s
not threatening us.”
“If he does not speak, then he is no
more than an enemy to me. This is not the Felix that we know.”
A gust of wind slapped the bow away
from Hazel’s hands.
Rina closed her hands after she
finished casting a spare amount of wind energy. “Seriously, you're going to resort to violence just so he could speak up? You, out of anyone of us, should know that.”
Hazel sighed. “You… don’t
understand.”
Forrest wanted to cry. He was hiding
behind Leo for comfort, and Viola was motionless as usual. She just let the
conversation fly wherever it went.
Hazel turned away. “Do not come back
to me if he ever gets away with betrayal. We should plan our next tactic. On
the upside, at least he won’t be telling Magnus about our plans, so as long as
we keep him within our sights.”
Felix stood up. “H-Hold on. I don’t
want to be some kind of untrusted group member.”
Forrest agreed with him. “Yeah! He
was the leader before, right?”
“We don’t have a leader. We are all
working together to stop Magnus,” Hazel exclaimed. Now, I think it would be
best to keep both Felix and Lydia away from the sacred floating land of Lumious
until the rest of us give the signal.”
Lydia gasped. “Why me?”
Leo answered for her, “Felix is
understandable, as we are trying to keep his distance away from Magnus,
assuming he is waiting for us there. As for Lydia, her mere presence might
activate any natural habitats that require Obsidian energy just like the Frolix
Volcano. That would be in favor for him.”
“Likewise, we may need to leave
Felix and Lydia at the Crescent airship until we give the signal. Like already
mentioned, Magnus wanted to leave the ship intact so we could get to Lumious
the easy route. At this point, I don’t think Magnus would guess that we would
be taking the long, dangerous route.”
“So, we should pick our teams,”
Warren suggested. “I have to stay with Felix and Lydia if I want to steer the
airship.”
Rina raised her hand. “I would have
to learn the final magic element as soon as possible, so being the first group
there would come in handy. Therefore, I’m taking the walking route through the
Boris San Jovi cavern despite how dangerous it could be inside.”
Viola took out her spear. “In case
there are enemies in the cavern and when we reach Lumious, I guess you could
use some combat support.”
Hazel patted Forrest on the head. “I
suggest we need at least one tactician in each group which means either me or
Leo should go. If we want an even group of four, that leaves Forrest to join
Rina and Viola.” [Music 36.1]
Forrest turned to his pretended
older brother, Felix, friendly sister, Lydia, and fatherly Warren. “Aww… but I
wanna stay with them!”
Leo knelt down in front of him. “I
will go with you then, Forrest.”
Forrest became happy. “Oh yeah?
Yippee!!”
Hazel turned red. “And why not me?”
Leo whispered to Forrest, “It’s not
rare that children are more afraid of motherly figures than brotherly figures.”
“Really? Oh, that’s why,” Forrest
said nonchalantly.
Hazel punched both of their heads.
Bruises appeared.
As the group separated on each side,
Warren said while waving, “Rina, may I ask if you cast some kind of signal
using any magic element? That will be our cue to fly in.”
Rina nodded. “That sounds fine. We
could also have Forrest shoot a beam of fire into the sky if necessary. Once we
trap Magnus, you four will follow in afterwards and Magnus would have no chance
in taking advantage of Lydia’s Obsidian energy.”
Viola went ahead first. Warren began
walking back to the airship on the other side of the laboratory. Hazel lastly
warned them that the labyrinth could change its paths at any point, so her experience
with the Boris San Jovi from twenty years ago would be useless information.
Finally, they all split apart.
~ Boris San Jovi – eastern pathway ~
In front of them were pitch-black
caves that looked like the inside of a beehive.
“Gee… I’d hate to be the people who
got lost in here… Is that what a labranth does to you??”
“Labyrinth,” Rina corrected him.
Viola stabbed her lance against the
ground right in front of Forrest. “Does this cavern… scare you?”
“EEEH!” Forrest hid behind Leo’s
coat, almost crying.
Viola giggled. “Aw, you’re such an
adorable child.”
Rina turned around, “Hey, we
shouldn’t fool around. Scaring the kid will just make it worse.”
Forrest stomped with both of his feet.
“I-I’m not scared!” A few bats roamed out of one cavern hole and Forrest knelt
down, hiding under Leo’s coat.
Rina casted a wind aura around them
and the bats scurried off.
“See? With my magic, we’re good.”
Leo snapped his fingers. “Good until
you’re out of energy.”
“Well, we’re just gonna have to use
it sparingly if the labyrinth is going to get us lost.” [End music]
~ Merridian Laboratory – northeastern sector – The Crescent
~
“What the hell was that for?!” Felix
shouted.
Lydia had her hands over her mouth.
“H-Hazel, what are you doing?”
“This is to ensure he will not
create a sneak attack by Magnus’ orders.”
“What, by dehumanizing me?” Felix
argued, clenching his teeth.
“Do understand that this is the only
option until we get rid of his control over you. You will have to be patient,
Felix.”
Warren said nothing of the matter.
Lydia seemed really worried for him. She wanted to take the ropes off, but she
knew Hazel was eying her as well.
Felix placed his head down in his
own disappointment. “Ergh…”
Hazel seemed to be a little
aggressive lately, but she only did it for the better good. Even she felt
uneasy about how she has been acting, but she wanted to make sure everyone was
safe in the best possible way.
~ Boris San Jovi – ??? ~
The group of four reached a small
spring. Sure, the room was pitch-black, but the small spring was lighted by an
opening from up above.
“Yes, this spring does quite
resemble some similarities to the first time we went through here. I remember
we went north each time we passed this,” Viola spoke calmly.
“Should we head… west?” Rina
suggested.
“Better than north,” Viola said in a
joking manner.
Forrest knelt down to grab some
water into his hands. “We were in here for like what, over an hour??”
Leo grabbed Forrest’s arms before he
touched any of the water. “Don’t! It could be dangerous. If you need water,
have Rina give you some.” [Music 6.1]
Forrest frowned. “That doesn’t sound
very tasty…” Rina was screeching in annoyance in the background.
Viola examined the water closely.
“Maybe Boris San Jovi is the place filled with traps that I’ve been hearing
about.”
Rina headed for the spring nearby.
“What, and you tell us this now?”
Forrest pointed at Viola with anger,
“You just want me to die!”
“Why would I want you to die a death
like this? If I wanted you dead, I would have killed you a long time ago. Blood
and guts would seem more entertaining, don’t you agree?”
Forrest made the loudest scream he
has ever made and Leo forcefully covered his mouth. With a sudden silence, you
could hear rocks falling from the ceiling.
Rina had her arms crossed. “Didn’t I
tell you to stop scaring him?” She then elbowed Viola with a smirk on her face,
“Although I’m with you on killing him, heh.” She suddenly shook her head away
from all of the jokes. “Oh but seriously, we need to keep moving. Let’s head
west because this cavern doesn’t feel very stable.”
They all headed into a dark and
narrow path down the western cavern from the spring. Forrest and Leo were busy
talking about heroic myths to help keep their minds off of the labyrinth while
Rina was curious to ask Viola some questions.
“So… what else do you know about
this labyrinth?”
“Well, I’ve heard you could get lost
in here.”
“Been there.”
“And you could fall for traps like
poisonous water.”
“Done that.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the
large amount of traps in the straightest paths you could find.”
“What?” Rina suddenly looked
straight ahead. No wonder the path was so narrow and straight-forward. There
was a price to pay for this.
The fifteen-foot pathway began
closing in on them slowly. Fourteen… thirteen…
“Waaaah, what is this?!?!” Forrest
squealed. Leo threw Forrest onto his back as he began running.
Rina and Viola followed along.
Luckily, the walls were slow so they easily made it through. The next straight
path had a bunch of interesting totem poles to the side. Their mouths were open
but the eyes were as brown as stone.
Forrest jumped up several times in
front of one of them to examine the eyes. “Wow! This looks cool.”
Rina grabbed onto Forrest’s collar,
“Stay away from those! Seriously, you’re making me sound like Hazel and it
disgusts me.”
Forrest laughed. “What, are these
things going to magically wake up and try to kill us? Hehe!”
“Come to think of it, the Merridian
Laboratory is right next to this
labyrinth. I wouldn’t be surprised to see such high-tech devices being trashed
down here,” Viola said without any sign of worry.
Leo was walking ahead and he
accidentally tripped on a rock. The first totem pole from behind had eyes lit.
The mouth suddenly spewed endless flames.
Forrest and Leo hugged each other in
fear. Rina was about to cast her wind magic to protect them, but she realized
that fire could easily strike through wind and destroy it. Instead, she called
for them to run away as the second and third poles were lit. [End music]
Traps, Traps, and More Traps!
~ Merridian Laboratory – northeastern sector – The Crescent
~
“Wouldn’t they be worn out after a
thousand years?” Lydia asked her.
“It would appear so, but there is
also a chance that I can reactivate some if I knew how. There are things that the
Rhadessian civilization use from several thousands of years ago, so why not
something like these?”
Lydia giggled. “Eheh… that’s a good
point, I guess.”
Finally Some Peace and Quiet
Warren continued to read the manual
for the airship. “You come back safely. If Rina sends a signal, come rush back
to us.”
Hazel nodded and gave him an
expression indicating that if Felix did anything suspicious, Warren would have
to take care of the issue. Warren nodded as Hazel exited the Crescent airship.
Lydia sat down nearby Warren. “So
Warren, once this is all over, are you going to become a Gammel soldier again?”
Warren only chuckled. “Ah, that
would be nice. Actually, I would prefer that the Gammel army would disassemble
and become a different kind of army – an army that unifies both Lennox and
Winstel to protect Rhadessia in harmonization.”
“That sounds like a good idea!”
“But what I would really want to do
is work as a bartender.”
“Really? That’s kind of random.”
“Maybe so, but I could never express
myself outside of the Gammel military because we had to focus on saving ‘this’,
saving ‘that’. Even after being expelled, I had no time to think about what I
really wanted to do in life due to the fact that I had been miserable, and now
we are too focused on trying to stop Master Magnus.” Lydia became silent. She
knew he was right anyway. “What about you?”
“Huh?”
Warren turned to her. “What do you plan
on doing after all of this?”
“Umm… I never really thought about
it either. I don’t have a home anymore, and my adoptive mother will now live in
peace at the Village of Saradeli.” She said to Felix, “Oh! You think I could
live with the rest of them at the village and help reform it?!”
Despite being tied up, he tried his
best to smile. “That sounds like a nice idea.”
“You don’t seem that excited,” Lydia
sounded disappointed.
“No, I am happy. It’s just hard to
smile a little.”
“Are you still bothered by Hazel?”
“Maybe a tiny bit… It’s just, I’m
trying so hard to control what to do and what not to do. Sometimes I feel like I can control it, but no one
trusts me.”
Lydia walked closer to him. “I trust
you, Felix.”
Felix blushed. “You do?”
“Of course! We all went through so
much and we did fine in the end, right?”
He turned away. “But people like
Faris…”
Lydia patted his shoulder and then
she gave him a pinky. “There will be no more deaths then. How about that?
Promise?”
Felix was silent.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to
pinky promise. I can tell your mind promises me that. Hehe. Once we stop
Magnus, you’ll surely be back to normal!” [End music]
Felix agreed with her. “Yeah, maybe
you’re right.” He turned away, thinking to himself. “I don’t know about that
promise…”
~ Boris San Jovi – ??? ~
They eventually reached a safe exit,
but in front of them was just an abyssal bottom with a long, tightrope hanging
from one end to the other. The ground behind them was pushed upward and the only
thing they could do was move on ahead, if there was a way. The cavern behind
them was completely closed off. [Music 49.1]
Forrest still wanted to cry. He was
almost nearly dead from all of the traps. You might think it was quick and
short, but they were at it for several minutes, almost up to another hour. The
worst part of all was right in front of them. They had to climb on the ropes
like what you would generally see on the monkey bars at a children’s jungle
gym. This abyss was as wide as generic large bedroom.
“You first,” Rina pushed Leo ahead.
“Wh-What?! Why me?”
Rina shrugged. “Um, I don’t know.
Show Viola how manly you are or something.”
“Works for me,” Leo said quickly as
he went first.
Rina was next after seeing that the
ropes were safe to grab.
Forrest was shaking. “I-I-I don’t
know if I want to do this…”
Viola crouched down. “Why not?” She
had an evil look on her face while holding her spear.
Forrest jumped onto the ropes.
“EEEGH!”
The moment Viola climbed the ropes
after Forrest, the wall that was previously pushed upward, was now moving
inward on them.
“What?!” Leo looked back.
Rina kicked him. “Just keep going!!”
“H-Hey, don’t kick me!” They began
rushing forward. “And why didn’t you use your magic to manipulate the ground or
something?!”
“It went up by force, and I didn’t
even have time to cast magic. If you were a magic user, you would know that!”
The walls were moving in closer now.
Leo finally made it to the top, followed by Rina. The wall began crackling and
it leaned against the ropes.
Forrest cried. “No!! It’s going to
rip apart!”
Rina casted an ice block on the most
bent portion of the ropes but even that was breaking. As soon as Forrest was
about to grab onto Leo’s hand, the rope broke in half and Forrest slid off the
rope.
“No!!!” Leo shouted.
“I-I’m okay…” Forrest grabbed onto
Viola’s legs.
Viola coughed. “You are quite lucky
that you are light.”
“Whatever, just grab our hands!”
Rina commanded.
“I can’t hold on much longer!”
Forrest yelled.
Leo offered both hands for Viola
while Rina had to stand back and focus. Once Viola grabbed Leo’s hands, Forrest
slid off her legs. In that very moment, the wall right below Leo pushed forward
and Forrest fell onto it.
Rina knelt down, almost exhausted.
“That wasted a lot of energy…”
Forrest made his way to the top
ledge, holding onto Leo.
Viola grinned. “That would be
expected. These walls would require a lot of energy to move if they were
pre-formed by technologists.”
Leo patted Rina on the head. “You
okay?”
“Yeah, whatever. Just don’t be so
slow next time,” she pouted.
Up ahead was light this time! They
could finally see the exit. About time. Viola was first to exit. The light was
too bright for the other three at first.
“Oh my, it looks like we are at the
Terrain Valley path.”
“Wha?!” The other three yelled at
the same time. They all ran out together.
Viola chuckled. “Just kidding. We
are here, right below Lumious.”
Rina gave a huge sigh. “Really?
Joking right now?” [End music]
Viola said nothing in return. In
front of them was an extremely large tree, or more like a beanstalk that led up
to a large chapel above. They could just run in an upward spiral along the
beanstalk which was a pretty amazing sight. Imagine an escalator, only you get
to go up several floors above.
Midway, they began wondering when
the best time to send a signal was, but they still needed to find Magnus first.
~ Merridian Laboratory – central sector ~
The moment she pressed the number
‘5’, nothing happened. The battery was out, but clearly she did not realize
that. She turned the phone around. “A secret compartment!” She said to herself.
“This must be an ancient secret from the past.” She removed the battery cover,
noticing a large battery within it. “And this is some kind of alien device that
tells the phone what to do! Marvelous!”
She began thrashing within the pile
to find more devices such as a DVD set and some speakers. Wires were scattered
everywhere, and she decided to put the white, yellow, and red chords onto a
television set. “One wire goes in here…” She put each plug in any possible
outlet like a puzzle without realizing what she was getting herself into.
The closest utility pole began to
electrify and the television set finally turned on. It only blinked, indicating
that the entire city was out of electricity.
“What was that thunder shock just
now?” she asked herself. “And this screen box thing turned on for a blink
second but it died. Did I do something wrong?” She began to poke the television
set. “Maybe it can talk.”
Before she could speak, she noticed
something behind the television set. [End music]
~ Lumious – central chapel ~
Leo whispered to them. “Lumious must
have been empty for quite some time due to the lack of Obsidian energy in this
world. I don’t see anyone.”
Rina went first. “Follow me. We’re
going to sneak behind box-to-box. Meet me at the windows of the chapel. Avoid
going in because it could be a trap.”
As Rina arrived at the window, the
angle only let her see one person: Clyde. The rest of the group rummaged behind
her. All they could hear was a faint conversation. They saw Clyde facing
someone, but they couldn’t even see who was in front of him.
“Yes, Master Magnus. You can leave
it to me. I will take care of them.”
“Magnu-?!” Forrest shouted but his
mouth was quickly covered by Leo. “Mmmph mmm mph!!?!” He was moaning, almost
sounding as if he was asking for Bailey.
“Be quiet!” Rina said to him. “Look,
I can use my magic to trap both of them in and then we can question them. She
catalyzed a stronger amount of fire power that she gained at the Frolix
Volcano, into Forrest’s bazooka. “Shoot into the air when I say so. I will be
busy casting my magic aura around the chapel. Got it?”
Forrest shivered. “O-Okay.”
After a few seconds, Rina was ready
to release her magic after setting a field of energy around the chapel. Forrest
shot into the air after Rina gave him the heads-up. The moment he did so, Viola
gasped.
She was still looking into the
chapel. Magnus was transparent and Viola could see him vanish as Clyde was left
alone. “A hologram?!” she shouted.
After the large explosion dispersed
from the sky, the group heard a familiar voice. “That is correct.”
Magnus stood without his holographic
form right outside the chapel!
Leo clenched his teeth. “It was a
trap!!”
~ Merridian Laboratory – northeastern sector – The Crescent
~
Warren grabbed onto the steering
wheel. “That must be the signal!”
“Hazel!” Lydia pointed out the
window. “She’s coming back right now. Let’s start flying the ship as soon as possible!” [End music]
The ship began to fly and Hazel was
barely able to climb on the edge of the walkway.
Felix was facing the floor still.
His hair covered his face, but he was surely making a demonic grin.
[Ending 4 music]
~~~
Moving along the next episode of The Obsidian Tale, the battle of Lumious begins! Although rather short, they begin to struggle trying to fight on the airship's deck. How many monsters are being released at this point in time? Is Rhadessia's fate to be doomed forever? There has to be a way to stop Magnus, but he constantly outsmarts them! What will he do next? Tune in on the next episode!
~~~
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