The next morning, they woke up to the strong smell of herbs, lemons and sweet sauce. The innkeeper had cooked them a breakfast of Herb Marinade Beef with the loots they have contributed, the dish of tender beef was apparently a secret Payon recipe.

‘Hey, did anyone see Hirei?’ asked Cedric as he entered the dining area, both Penelope and Aalaiyah already enjoying their meal.

‘The innkeeper told me that he left us a message,’ Penelope said as she laid down her cutlery. ‘He’s taking the Archer test right now, and asked us to meet him in the Archer Village at noon.’

‘Gosh, that impatient guy,’ Cedric laughed. ‘And I here I was hoping that the beauty of Payon had stopped him in his tracks. I guess nothing will slow him down from his dream of becoming a renowned Hunter and gracing the covers of “Bullseye!”.’

They set out for the Archer Village after their meal, heading down the dirt path leading north. Reaching a gate, they asked the guard on duty for directions to the Archer Guild. They reached the fork the guard spoke of and took the middle path of the three. Eventually, they reached two buildings at the end of the road. Both buildings were traditionally built with mostly wood, vines and leaves creeping all over the building, making them one with nature. After identifying the headquarters of the Archer Guild from a small wooden sign at the front, Cedric pushed open the sliding door and took a step in.

‘Hirei Kusano?’ the man at the counter looked up as they asked for Hirei’s whereabouts. ‘Oh, you must mean that white-haired kid. He left already. I said if his friends were looking for him, he’d be down the other fork at the Buddha statue.’

And so, they thanked the man and were on Hirei’s trail again. They backtracked to the fork and took the path heading southeast until they reached a large statue of a man sitting peacefully on a large lotus flower, his legs crossed and his eyes closed calmly. This must have been the statue of Buddha the man at the Archer Guild spoke about. But where exactly is Hirei?

Just then, an arrow came flying down from above, landing precisely and inch away from Cedric’s feet. Looking above, he saw a frenzied boy in a mahogany outfit with blue pants, wielding a bow while crouching down dangerously on a tree branch. He leapt into the air with a warlike cry, his hands spread out and ambushed an unaware Cedric with a body slam, causing him to fall onto the ground while his face was covered with sleet white hair, as if trying to force Cedric to eat them.

‘Oh gosh, Hirei! Must you make such an entrance?’

It seems that the apparently barbaric person was just a Hirei in a new outfit. He was wearing the Archer’s outfit, his long sleeves rolled up to his shoulders with an arrow quiver hanging across his back. Hirei and Cedric both laughed when they straightened themselves up, congratulating Hirei on his achievement.

‘We’re all first job now!’ Cedric cheered as he flashed a bright grin. ‘What shall we do now?’

‘Well, this calls for a celebration!’ said Hirei who smirked suspiciously with his fingers on his chin. ‘And a good idea of a celebration is to test out my new archery skills by traversing Payon Dungeon!’

‘You mean that cave with undead monsters lurking in it?’ asked Aalaiyah uncertainly. She seemed frightened by the idea of entering a spooky cave with beings who were supposed to be dead.

‘Since we’re here in Payon, I think it’ll be nice to just take a look at the dungeon and challenge ourselves,’ Cedric nodded before receiving an eye signal from a concerned Penelope. ‘But of course, if Aalaiyah doesn’t want to, we could always look somewhere else or start our journey to Morroc.’

‘No, it’s alright. I’d like to try it out too,’ Aalaiyah spoke out with a hint of courage in her voice. She did not want to let down the party, and figured that if she wanted to learn, it would be best to encounter as many types of monsters as she can.

And so, they returned back to the fork for the second time, and went down the left path that they have not taken, bringing them in front of the entrance of a spooky cave, weird moaning and sharp bat noises could be heard from the outside. They agreed to try out the first level of the dungeon, and if faced with danger, will escape together immediately, safety being their top priority. Aalaiyah gripped tightly onto Penelope’s cape as Cedric led the way into the cave with a lamp in his left hand to illuminate their way. The cave’s surface was bumpy and moist, dimly lit with oil lamps that hung from the walls of the cave. There were green Poporings, creatures similar to their pink Poring counterparts, but armed with poison and were more dangerous. Aggressive Farmiliars were widespread, but were easily dispatched by the foursome. There were undead Skeletons as well, but they did not cause any trouble as they were unaggressive. However, their presence was disturbing as they hop across the cave with their bones clanking, all bones and no skin.

‘Something’s coming,’ Hirei said suddenly, his keen ears alerted. He put his bow forward and mounted an arrow on it, prepared for enemy encounter. Cedric stepped forward of the rest with his sword drawn, being the only melee attacker of the group it was normal that he is always in the frontlines. Penelope and Aalaiyah both took out their Bible and spell book respectively, ready to cast any spells if needed.

‘Undead, medium-sized monster, weak against Holy and Fire property. Walks slowly and has a poison attack. I-It’s a Zombie…’ said Aalaiyah, trembling when she saw the real thing. It looked like a wrinkled up human with sickly purple skin, a pair of dull red eyes like a dead fish, brown matted hair, wearing just a loincloth, releasing a foul odour from his mouth and attracting flies all over.

‘Heal!’ Penelope cried with her palms opened forward, a bright green light emerging from them. The Zombie staggered as it was hit by the healing spell, dealing damage to its undead body. Yet, it continued to walk towards them with its hands outstretched.

As Penelope continued to strike the Zombie with Heal spells at a steady rate, Cedric concentrated his spirit energy in his sword to prepare for his skill. Before he could land his sword on the enemy, Aalaiyah had completed the incantation of her spell from her spell book which was floating in front of her in midair, a red aura bursting from her feet and her wand. ‘Fire Bolt!’ she yelled boldly with a swish of her wand. Balls of fire formed from above, bolting the Zombie mercilessly until it dropped on its knees, its life force leaving the already rotten body.

‘Wow, great job girls!’ said Hirei, impressed. ‘Both of you killed it before we could do anything. Aalaiyah, did you just use your telekinetic powers on your book?’

‘Um, yeah, it was just a sudden inspiration to do so,’ Aalaiyah said as her spell book landed softly into her outstretched arms. ‘I got excited by that thought that I think I forgotten my fear for the Zombie. Wow, I’m pretty good with my telekinetic powers now!’

They ventured further into the cave, battling several more Zombies until they reached the end of a small path which had a stairs leading down, deeper into the second level of the dungeon. Hirei walked straight on forward cheerfully, but was stopped by Penelope.

‘I thought we agreed to go this far?’ said Penelope. ‘The undeads down there might be too strong for us. I don’t want to take the risk and have any one of us badly injured.’

‘I’ve heard that there are Soldier Skeletons and Archer Skeletons down there…’ said Aalaiyah as she fiddled with her wand. ‘Maybe we should backtrack out of here…’

‘If you haven’t seen it, how’d you know?’ Hirei piped stubbornly. ‘Come on, let’s go down there!’

Before Cedric could stop him, Hirei had run down the stairs and went out of sight. ‘That stone headed Hirei, we got to go down there and get him back out. Quickly, they dashed after Hirei and found Penelope’s judgement to be correct, unfortunately. To their dismay, they found an army of Soldier Skeletons, dark and boney undead creatures which are nimble whilst handling two daggers, crowding the entrance of the second level of the dungeon.

Without thinking twice, Aalaiyah whipped out her spell book and wand, magic glyphs circling her legs as fire bolts rained down from above, striking the army of Soldier Skeletons.

‘Move back, you pile of bones!’ Hirei shouted as he reloaded his bow with arrows. He focused his spirit powers on the string of his composite bow before striking. ‘Double Strafe!’ he yelled, unleashing two arrows at once, destroying a Soldier Skeleton into a heap of bones.

Cedric leapt backwards after casting Magnum Break, his sword burning in flames as an after effect. Remembering Aalaiyah’s words that fire property was strong against undeads, he took advantage of his currently fire endowed weapon and followed it up with another skill he had learned. ‘Bash!’ he roared, running forward to attack the wave of enemies. He attacked the remaining skeletons normally until the flames on his blade died out. He let loose his spirit energy for another Magnum Break attack, but the Soldier Skeletons kept coming. Just when Cedric needed the extra boost, Penelope casted waves of healing and supportive spells from behind to support her fellow team members.

‘There’s… just… too many of them!’ Cedric said through his gritted teeth, parrying the double bladed attacks from the Soldier Skeletons with his sword.

‘Hirei, behind you!’ Aalaiyah gasped in warning during the intervals of her spell casting. While Hirei was reloading his bow, a Soldier Skeleton had crept up behind him, dagger in the air and was ready to strike him. Even after being alerted, it was too late for Hirei. As he turned around, the Soldier Skeleton was already swinging its double daggers across his face. Hirei fell backwards helplessly, closing his eyes tightly and expecting the worse.

Crack.

The Soldier Skeleton collapsed into a heap bones without a spirit, its daggers fell onto the ground with a clank before reducing to dust. Hirei breathed deeply as he opened his eyes slowly, walking closer to inspect the now dead Soldier Skeleton. There was a sharp arrow with a poorly straightened shaft and a somewhat unappealing fletching, making for a rather effective arrow but with misshaped looks. They raised their heads in the direction of where the arrow came from, finding a silhouette of a slender female Hunter with a bow in hand on a higher platform. She could be seen with short hair and was accompanied by a beautiful falcon, but they were unable to see her face clearly as it was too dark. She released another wave of arrows, effortlessly defeating a handful of Soldier Skeletons.

‘Leave,’ said the Huntress softly as a cold, dry voice escaped her thin lips. ‘This is not a place for newbies like you to wander in.’

‘What newbies are you talking about?’ Hirei retorted without thinking as he only cared to defend his pride. ‘You expect us to leave you here alone to fend of these things?’

The Huntress responded cynical laugh which echoed in the cave. ‘So, shall I expect you, who I had just rescued to destroy this army? You don’t know where you are standing, Archer boy. For a person who was just saved to worry about their savior, how amusingly ironic.’

Hirei was furious by the Huntress’ remark, immediately forgetting how he had put the whole party in trouble in the first place. He wanted to prove the Huntress wrong, reloading his bow quickly. However, he was too slow for someone who had more experience in this field, as the Huntress had made her move by striking an arrow swiftly against the cave wall. The friction caused a flame to ignite the metal head of the arrow, which she used to light up a bundle of arrows. At that moment, the fire lit up her face, revealing that the Huntress had an unusual teal hair and had a black cloth draped over her right eye. Before Cedric, Hirei, Penelope and Aalaiyah could further examine the details on the Huntress’ face, the fire arrows were already sent flying into the air.

‘Arrow Shower!’ the Huntress howled valiantly with her bow pointed towards the ceiling. Fire arrows were shot in nines upwards, falling neatly in rows in front of Hirei and his friends. In a split second the arrows burst into flames, forming a wall of fire between them and the army of Skeleton Soldiers along with the Huntress, effectively blocking their path.

‘I won’t let her say that about me, that arrogant Huntress!’ Hirei bellowed as he waved his bow in the air, struggling to get out of Penelope’s grasps and was trying to run towards the fire.

‘Rei, stop being so ignorant, you can’t do anything about this!’ Cedric shouted back as he assisted Penelope in restraining Hirei. With much effort, they finally retreated out of the cave, leaving the mysterious Huntress in there to fight off the undeads. Fortunately, they escaped unscathed, but with a part of Hirei’s ego injured.

‘What were you thinking?’ Cedric bellowed as Hirei tried to complain about the event again. With Cedric’s scolding, Hirei remained silent, his mind still flaring with the Huntress’ insults.

‘First, you ran down to the second floor alone without the rest of the party, even after we said we’re only trying out the first floor. Then we were ambushed by an army of Soldier Skeletons. Then you had to start opening your big mouth after being saved, even trying to risk your life to prove your point to the Huntress for insulting you? Haven’t you realized that it’s your mistake? She’s much more skilled than you are, and you know it deep down, you just don’t have the guts to admit it.’

‘Alright, alright, I got your point!’ said Hirei angrily as he dropped onto the ground, tired and filled with shame. ‘Just… enough with that already. You know that I know that I’m a… a sore loser…’

‘At least you’re clear enough to know that,’ said Cedric as he smiled, a mutual understanding and forgiving sparked between the two friends as he bent down and pat Hirei on the back. He did not mean it in a sarcastic way, but of relieve instead. ‘Come on, let’s go and get some dinner now. We’ve had enough adventure for a day.’

They returned back to the lodging house for dinner and a well earned rest. The next morning, they checked out of the inn and decided the head west in their journey of learning and search for Ymir’s Heart piece, a part of them will always be left behind in Payon and its friendly people, the beauty of the mountain village and the lessons they learned in the dark dungeons.

***

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Current Word Count: 19,633

Labels: NaNoMadness