| Dear Diary, Today was a strange and confusing day. My mother told me that she is sending me to the city to attend the magic academy and become an enchantress. But I don't want to be an enchantress! I want to be an archer, like my father. I don't understand why my mother is making me do this. I have always hated magic. It's too complicated and doesn't make any sense to me. I tried to explain my feelings to my mother, but she just brushed them aside. She said that being an enchantress is a great honor and will bring prosperity to our family. But I don't care about any of that. I just want to do what makes me happy. I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm being forced down a path that I don't want to follow. I wish I could just run away and start a new life as an adventurer on my own. But I know that's not possible. I have no money except for what she provides me with. I will have to go to the city and attend the magic academy. I just hope that somehow I can find a way to be happy and follow my true passions. Maybe she won’t notice if I take father’s old bow out of the attic before I go. Sincerely, Yours truly |
~ Diary entry of a young girl, living in the western city
| ~ [Taishi-shi] ~ |
| Vildt (Rabbit), Male, Priest of Isaiah |
| Location: The Far Off Eastern Continent |
The storm howls, the crashing of waves that hammer against the shore carrying out even this deep into the wild-lands where he roams, his robe tattered from the many clawing branches of the bare-leafed trees, reaching out to grab at him like the greedy fingers of a coven of witches. The raging roars of the wind and tide cover over the sound of his panting for air as he moves.
He stares up towards the sky, hanging over them like a burial shroud as proof of the strange times that they find themselves in.
The boy’s robe is soaked through to his bones. He wipes off his face in vain with his wet sleeve, as it is only covered in a fresh downpour an instant later anyway.
Children ought not venture into the deep forests. That is where hungry monsters live. Mind you, in this day and age, the monsters are just as likely to walk the streets with two legs and two arms as they are to live in the forest — some grisly rumors say that the chances of being eaten are just as high with one as with the other — but he must find food.
It is forbidden for vildt to hunt wild animals other than fish, and since the trees and bushes are barren and fruitless, that leaves only monsters for him to hunt. Fishing is how they would usually secure their meat, but in times of darkness, it is unwise to go near the water.
Monsters that live beneath the surface know when it is dark. They know that small children can not see well near the water’s edge, and are all too happy to wait there until they get a chance to snatch a pair of small ankles and drag them into the brink.
The young priest holds his hand out to the side, the glowing orb of holy-magic in his hands illuminating a trail of prints with long claw marks, left in the mud.
He exhales, the last vapors of his bodily warmth leaving him now, as the cold rain draws out the last of his heat.
“Isaiah, give me strength,” prays the boy, wandering into the darkness of the land. He must find food soon so that he may return to his congregation to satiate their hunger and to prove himself to them.
| ~ [???] ~ |
| Human, Female, Monk |
| Location: The Tower, Graveyard |
Stones fly, breaking apart into hundreds of pieces that fly through the air as loose shards as a heavy, bare knuckled fist collides against the surface of the gravestone. There isn’t a moment to spare for even the rattling of the beads on her arm before she spins around, her shin making contact with a grace-giving statue of a woman, breaking it in half, and sending the upper part of it to fly against the tower, where it crumbles.
She pants, her bruised body and agitation getting the better of her for a moment before she grits her teeth, presses down a scream and flings her arm towards the next stone getting in her way.
“— What’chya doing?” asks a voice, a face popping up exactly where her fist is going. The monk barely catches herself, turning her fist and then tripping, tumbling over herself down onto the ground. She lays there for a second, staring up at the dark sky and then at Orange’s face, which hangs over her head from above. “I don’t think it’s very nice to destroy the graves, you know?” she asks. “Black worked very hard on making them,” explains the uthra. She looks around the area to check for something, before covering the side of her mouth and whispering. “There aren’t actually any bodies in most of them, you know?” she asks. “They’re symbiotic or something.”
“— Symbolic,” says the monk quietly. “It’s symbolic, of those who died in the tower, even under the effects of Isaiah’s mercy,” she explains, taking over Orange’s explanation for her.
“Mm…” replies the uthra. The two of them stare at each other for a time. “You’re kind of a jerk, you know?” she asks. The monk blinks, looking at the uthra, who had made a very unusual statement for her. “I really got scared when I heard you went to the city by yourself,” she explains. "Then, after I rescued you, you still tried to go back again,” she says. “Even after I got hurt. White told me.” Orange frowns, looking down at her. “That’s not what friends do,” says the uthra, rubbing her arm and looking away.
There’s a piece of broken rock under her head, which is rather uncomfortable, but she just leaves it and her head where they are.
“Sorry,” says the monk.
“I cried a lot, you know!” argues Orange, her tone getting sharp. “I was really scared, and my wing really hurt until Isaiah fixed it!”
“Sorry,” repeats the monk, closing her eyes.
Honestly, she’s not even too sure herself anymore what she was thinking. She spent so long being useless in the context of her desired purpose, which is to help and protect the bright souls of the world. Then, when she finally had a chance to do something, anything at all, that greedy desire all superseded anything else she might have had in her.
“Rorate says that people who say they’re our friends but hurt us aren’t actually our friends,” explains the uthra. “That’s not true, is it?” she asks. “I’d cry a lot again if you were just pretending to be my friend,” says Orange.
“You are very direct with your emotions,” remarks the monk, opening her eyes again.
Very unusually for her normal behavior, Orange is just standing there exactly where she was, staring expectedly. The two of them look at one another for a while as she tries to ponder what the uthra wants from her. It’s quiet for a while as she thinks, staring at the uthra’s face. She is holding in her breath, puffing out her cheeks further and further very slowly with pursed lips.
“Sorry,” says the woman a third time. She lifts a hand, poking it against one of Orange’s cheeks.
“Fff—” starts Orange, blowing out the air.
“I think I’m just a bad friend, is all,” she explains.
“- Fff— ish,” finishes the uthra. The two of them stare for a time. “I still wanna go fishing.” The monk tilts her head, wincing as she rubs it over the rock she was lying on. “Wanna go right now?”
“I believe we are needed here,” replies the woman.
Orange stares at her. “Fish.”
“…Fish,” replies the monk.
“Fish?” asks Orange, tilting her head.
The monk shrugs.
Orange beams, grabbing her wrists and yanking her up into the air as the two of them fly to the ocean on the southern edge of the island that neither of them actually know how to fish in.
| ~ [Witch Perchta] ~ |
| ???, Female, Witch of the Black-Water |
| Location: The Dead City, A Small House |
“Everybody’s dead but me-he~,” sings Perchta, spinning in a circle through the room. “Everybody’s dead but me-he~!” she cheers, lifting her arms and then flopping down sideways over the arm rests of an occupied chair.
“Witch Perchta…” says Witch Spillaholle.
“SPILLIE!” says Perchta excitedly, grabbing hold of her friend. “We did it! We finally got one back on those damn, stupid humans!” she says with a glint in her eye. She turns her head. “Exceptions made for present company. You’re alright, Indigo,” she says, looking at Scholar Anderwal, who is leaning by the wall next to the door and scribbling in his book. She looks back at Witch Spillaholle.
“You are sitting on both my book and my hands, Witch Perchta,” sighs the woman, looking down. Perchta beams, snuggling into her and kicking her legs over the side of the chair. “Perhaps I will take my leave, now that the work is done.”
“'Done'?” asks Perchta, her legs stopping. She narrows her eyes. “We both know this isn’t done, Spooky-butt,” says the witch. “You can’t leave. The spell isn’t over yet.”
“Witch Perchta. Do not call me that ever again,” remarks Spillaholle, pulling her hands free but losing her book in the process. She sighs. “But it is indeed only a matter of time now,” she explains.
“Uh, pardon me, if I may?” asks a voice from the side of the room, Scholar Anderwal. “Spell?” he asks. “Do you mean your magic?”
Spillaholle looks at him, looking oddly proud of herself. “The red strings of fate, Mister Anderwal,” she replies. “They connect to all of us in the spirit-world, tying us together in…” She pauses for a moment as she looks at him. “- Strange ways that we aren’t usually meant to see.”
“A snake in the roost!” says Perchta excitedly. “Oh, I can’t wait! That stupid, ugly, bird-brained pigeon is going to get what’s coming to it!”
Scholar Anderwal puzzles for a moment, scratching his face with his pen. “Snakes?”
Spillaholle nods, clasping her hands together as would a pleased schemer, which locks Perchta into her. For Spillaholle, this is an unfortunate circumstance, but for Perchta, it counts as a hug, and the witch beams, rubbing her face against Spillaholle’s front. “Birds hate snakes, Mr. Anderwal, and what makes snakes most fearsome is their venom.” She catches a strand of her white hair, looking at him. “Sometimes, it is slow acting. When one is bitten by such a creature, it can take days for the poison to be noticed,” she explains. Anderwal nods, making a curious note in his journal. “- But by then, it will be too late.”
“Very impressive,” says Scholar Anderwal, looking as her face changes into something very rare indeed for the strange, quiet witch — a smile.
| ~ [Orange] ~ |
| Uthra, Female, Worker {6} |
| Location: The island, Southern Beach |
“— FISH!” screams Orange excitedly, as the two of them stand by the shoreline, looking at a large fish with a long, speared face that jumps out of the surface of the water. “Catch it! Catch it!” she says excitedly.
Nothing happens.
She looks over at the monk, who stands there and shrugs. “…With what?” she asks.
Orange stares at her for a time, before looking back at the ocean and then back at her. “…Huh…” It’s quiet for a while longer. “Rorate knows how to swim now. I don’t know how, though. The hot-springs are fine because they’re shallow, but…” She tilts her head. “Do you think fish have to learn how to swim?” she asks.
“It is likely an instinct for them,” replies the monk. “Would you like me to teach you?” she asks.
“YES!” yells Orange excitedly. She stops, blinking and rubbing her own chest for a second as she stares at the ground.
“All good?” asks the monk, taking off her heavy beads and boots.
“Yeah,” replies Orange, perking up again. “I just had that feeling I get when I eat Red’s cooking for a second!” replies the uthra.
“That’s normal,” replies the monk. “Come on!” she says, grabbing Orange’s wrist this time and pulling her after her towards the water.
| Dear Diary, Today was a strange and confusing day. My mother told me that she is sending me to the city to attend the magic academy and become an enchantress. But I don't want to be an enchantress! I want to be an archer, like my father. I don't understand why my mother is making me do this. I have always hated magic. It's too complicated and doesn't make any sense to me. I tried to explain my feelings to my mother, but she just brushed them aside. She said that being an enchantress is a great honor and will bring prosperity to our family. But I don't care about any of that. I just want to do what makes me happy. I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm being forced down a path that I don't want to follow. I wish I could just run away and start a new life as an adventurer on my own. But I know that's not possible. I have no money except for what she provides me with. I will have to go to the city and attend the magic academy. I just hope that somehow I can find a way to be happy and follow my true passions. Maybe she won’t notice if I take father’s old bow out of the attic before I go. Sincerely, Yours truly |
~ Diary entry of a young girl, living in the western city
| ~ [Taishi-shi] ~ |
| Vildt (Rabbit), Male, Priest of Isaiah |
| Location: The Far Off Eastern Continent |
The storm howls, the crashing of waves that hammer against the shore carrying out even this deep into the wild-lands where he roams, his robe tattered from the many clawing branches of the bare-leafed trees, reaching out to grab at him like the greedy fingers of a coven of witches. The raging roars of the wind and tide cover over the sound of his panting for air as he moves.
He stares up towards the sky, hanging over them like a burial shroud as proof of the strange times that they find themselves in.
The boy’s robe is soaked through to his bones. He wipes off his face in vain with his wet sleeve, as it is only covered in a fresh downpour an instant later anyway.
Children ought not venture into the deep forests. That is where hungry monsters live. Mind you, in this day and age, the monsters are just as likely to walk the streets with two legs and two arms as they are to live in the forest — some grisly rumors say that the chances of being eaten are just as high with one as with the other — but he must find food.
It is forbidden for vildt to hunt wild animals other than fish, and since the trees and bushes are barren and fruitless, that leaves only monsters for him to hunt. Fishing is how they would usually secure their meat, but in times of darkness, it is unwise to go near the water.
Monsters that live beneath the surface know when it is dark. They know that small children can not see well near the water’s edge, and are all too happy to wait there until they get a chance to snatch a pair of small ankles and drag them into the brink.
The young priest holds his hand out to the side, the glowing orb of holy-magic in his hands illuminating a trail of prints with long claw marks, left in the mud.
He exhales, the last vapors of his bodily warmth leaving him now, as the cold rain draws out the last of his heat.
“Isaiah, give me strength,” prays the boy, wandering into the darkness of the land. He must find food soon so that he may return to his congregation to satiate their hunger and to prove himself to them.
| ~ [???] ~ |
| Human, Female, Monk |
| Location: The Tower, Graveyard |
Stones fly, breaking apart into hundreds of pieces that fly through the air as loose shards as a heavy, bare knuckled fist collides against the surface of the gravestone. There isn’t a moment to spare for even the rattling of the beads on her arm before she spins around, her shin making contact with a grace-giving statue of a woman, breaking it in half, and sending the upper part of it to fly against the tower, where it crumbles.
She pants, her bruised body and agitation getting the better of her for a moment before she grits her teeth, presses down a scream and flings her arm towards the next stone getting in her way.
“— What’chya doing?” asks a voice, a face popping up exactly where her fist is going. The monk barely catches herself, turning her fist and then tripping, tumbling over herself down onto the ground. She lays there for a second, staring up at the dark sky and then at Orange’s face, which hangs over her head from above. “I don’t think it’s very nice to destroy the graves, you know?” she asks. “Black worked very hard on making them,” explains the uthra. She looks around the area to check for something, before covering the side of her mouth and whispering. “There aren’t actually any bodies in most of them, you know?” she asks. “They’re symbiotic or something.”
“— Symbolic,” says the monk quietly. “It’s symbolic, of those who died in the tower, even under the effects of Isaiah’s mercy,” she explains, taking over Orange’s explanation for her.
“Mm…” replies the uthra. The two of them stare at each other for a time. “You’re kind of a jerk, you know?” she asks. The monk blinks, looking at the uthra, who had made a very unusual statement for her. “I really got scared when I heard you went to the city by yourself,” she explains. "Then, after I rescued you, you still tried to go back again,” she says. “Even after I got hurt. White told me.” Orange frowns, looking down at her. “That’s not what friends do,” says the uthra, rubbing her arm and looking away.
There’s a piece of broken rock under her head, which is rather uncomfortable, but she just leaves it and her head where they are.
“Sorry,” says the monk.
“I cried a lot, you know!” argues Orange, her tone getting sharp. “I was really scared, and my wing really hurt until Isaiah fixed it!”
“Sorry,” repeats the monk, closing her eyes.
Honestly, she’s not even too sure herself anymore what she was thinking. She spent so long being useless in the context of her desired purpose, which is to help and protect the bright souls of the world. Then, when she finally had a chance to do something, anything at all, that greedy desire all superseded anything else she might have had in her.
“Rorate says that people who say they’re our friends but hurt us aren’t actually our friends,” explains the uthra. “That’s not true, is it?” she asks. “I’d cry a lot again if you were just pretending to be my friend,” says Orange.
“You are very direct with your emotions,” remarks the monk, opening her eyes again.
Very unusually for her normal behavior, Orange is just standing there exactly where she was, staring expectedly. The two of them look at one another for a while as she tries to ponder what the uthra wants from her. It’s quiet for a while as she thinks, staring at the uthra’s face. She is holding in her breath, puffing out her cheeks further and further very slowly with pursed lips.
“Sorry,” says the woman a third time. She lifts a hand, poking it against one of Orange’s cheeks.
“Fff—” starts Orange, blowing out the air.
“I think I’m just a bad friend, is all,” she explains.
“- Fff— ish,” finishes the uthra. The two of them stare for a time. “I still wanna go fishing.” The monk tilts her head, wincing as she rubs it over the rock she was lying on. “Wanna go right now?”
“I believe we are needed here,” replies the woman.
Orange stares at her. “Fish.”
“…Fish,” replies the monk.
“Fish?” asks Orange, tilting her head.
The monk shrugs.
Orange beams, grabbing her wrists and yanking her up into the air as the two of them fly to the ocean on the southern edge of the island that neither of them actually know how to fish in.
| ~ [Witch Perchta] ~ |
| ???, Female, Witch of the Black-Water |
| Location: The Dead City, A Small House |
“Everybody’s dead but me-he~,” sings Perchta, spinning in a circle through the room. “Everybody’s dead but me-he~!” she cheers, lifting her arms and then flopping down sideways over the arm rests of an occupied chair.
“Witch Perchta…” says Witch Spillaholle.
“SPILLIE!” says Perchta excitedly, grabbing hold of her friend. “We did it! We finally got one back on those damn, stupid humans!” she says with a glint in her eye. She turns her head. “Exceptions made for present company. You’re alright, Indigo,” she says, looking at Scholar Anderwal, who is leaning by the wall next to the door and scribbling in his book. She looks back at Witch Spillaholle.
“You are sitting on both my book and my hands, Witch Perchta,” sighs the woman, looking down. Perchta beams, snuggling into her and kicking her legs over the side of the chair. “Perhaps I will take my leave, now that the work is done.”
“'Done'?” asks Perchta, her legs stopping. She narrows her eyes. “We both know this isn’t done, Spooky-butt,” says the witch. “You can’t leave. The spell isn’t over yet.”
“Witch Perchta. Do not call me that ever again,” remarks Spillaholle, pulling her hands free but losing her book in the process. She sighs. “But it is indeed only a matter of time now,” she explains.
“Uh, pardon me, if I may?” asks a voice from the side of the room, Scholar Anderwal. “Spell?” he asks. “Do you mean your magic?”
Spillaholle looks at him, looking oddly proud of herself. “The red strings of fate, Mister Anderwal,” she replies. “They connect to all of us in the spirit-world, tying us together in…” She pauses for a moment as she looks at him. “- Strange ways that we aren’t usually meant to see.”
“A snake in the roost!” says Perchta excitedly. “Oh, I can’t wait! That stupid, ugly, bird-brained pigeon is going to get what’s coming to it!”
Scholar Anderwal puzzles for a moment, scratching his face with his pen. “Snakes?”
Spillaholle nods, clasping her hands together as would a pleased schemer, which locks Perchta into her. For Spillaholle, this is an unfortunate circumstance, but for Perchta, it counts as a hug, and the witch beams, rubbing her face against Spillaholle’s front. “Birds hate snakes, Mr. Anderwal, and what makes snakes most fearsome is their venom.” She catches a strand of her white hair, looking at him. “Sometimes, it is slow acting. When one is bitten by such a creature, it can take days for the poison to be noticed,” she explains. Anderwal nods, making a curious note in his journal. “- But by then, it will be too late.”
“Very impressive,” says Scholar Anderwal, looking as her face changes into something very rare indeed for the strange, quiet witch — a smile.
| ~ [Orange] ~ |
| Uthra, Female, Worker {6} |
| Location: The island, Southern Beach |
“— FISH!” screams Orange excitedly, as the two of them stand by the shoreline, looking at a large fish with a long, speared face that jumps out of the surface of the water. “Catch it! Catch it!” she says excitedly.
Nothing happens.
She looks over at the monk, who stands there and shrugs. “…With what?” she asks.
Orange stares at her for a time, before looking back at the ocean and then back at her. “…Huh…” It’s quiet for a while longer. “Rorate knows how to swim now. I don’t know how, though. The hot-springs are fine because they’re shallow, but…” She tilts her head. “Do you think fish have to learn how to swim?” she asks.
“It is likely an instinct for them,” replies the monk. “Would you like me to teach you?” she asks.
“YES!” yells Orange excitedly. She stops, blinking and rubbing her own chest for a second as she stares at the ground.
“All good?” asks the monk, taking off her heavy beads and boots.
“Yeah,” replies Orange, perking up again. “I just had that feeling I get when I eat Red’s cooking for a second!” replies the uthra.
“That’s normal,” replies the monk. “Come on!” she says, grabbing Orange’s wrist this time and pulling her after her towards the water.
