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#Post#: 1015--------------------------------------------------
The Risible Adventures of Rita Arthurs (completed; in editorial
process of V2)
DIR By: Rita Arthurs
Date: June 14, 2013, 5:11 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]The Risible Adventures of Rita Arthurs
Chapter 1
Obscurity[/center]
Many many years ago, there was a tale of the ancient
prospering village of Glenton of Bournemouthshire - an ancient
Chronicle written to tell the Tale of the Great Rebellion and
the events which have changed the lives of the residents
forever. The legend has it that the powerful Tribe Leaders rose
against the corrupted so called ‘Order’ which has tormented the
villagers for too long. This tale, however, consists of one of
the Tribe Leader’s early life and how they came to be who they
were – none other than the honourable Amber Tribe Leader – Rita
Arthurs.
The proud Amber Tribe was a powerful tribe full of great
warriors and healers known across the land; most infamous of all
were the holy paladins and knights who served the Amber Tribe’s
Central Cathedral, in the service of the Sun God. Honour and
justice were the main principles of any Amberian while deception
and slyness was scorn upon. The lands of the Tribe were known to
be blessed as the Tribe’s and the city’s most prized possession
were the Gardens of Eden located there which were believed to be
the gift of the Sun God themself full of crystals and wondrous
yet fascinating vegetation and flora blooming inside providing
Amber Tribe’s part of Glenton with all the light and nutrition
required.
Unexpectedly – the tale of the Leader-to-be did not start of a
young girl or lad dreaming of one day protecting the city, in
fact, it did not begin in neither Amber Tribe lands nor Glenton
or Bournemouthshire at all. It all began on the outskirts of the
Sixth Realm which resided near Bournemouthshire; there – all the
scum and outlaws usually resided. Young Rita Arthurs was brought
there when she was of a mere age of 9, not knowing who or where
her family was nor how she got there since one day she awoke in
the Great Forest with no recollection of who or where she was
only remembering the name of Rita Arthurs.
Although thieves were always known to be the villains and
rejects of society, Rita has come to know that it was not always
the case. Many people in the Sixth Realm did not have a choice
of life and chose the life of crime in order to look after their
families. Every midnight, there were parties of brigands who
went out into the night to find their next targets of the night
hunt for gold or food; many have not come back and very few
always returned unscratched and well – this was no job for the
weak. Rita learned from these people that you should not always
judge everyone on their outer appearance since despite their
looks and reputation, the people there took her in and raised
her as their own. She learned the basics of deception, weaponry
and of course how to move stealthily through the shadows of
night. Once in a while she would even sneak with the raiding
parties into the streets of nearby towns and cities, lending a
helping hand. Some knew these people as ‘The Rebels’.
Of course not all the residents of the Sixth Realm were like
that, some people here were corrupted and only desired
infliction of harm to others and gold; these were known as the
‘Serpents’ due to the similarities of snakes – sneaky and always
striking when least expected. There was even a rumour that some
of these were former spies, assassins and ninjas of the Topaz
Tribe’s ‘Serpent’s Den’ who have become corrupted beyond
recovery. Whenever the Rebels have found such lowly creatures,
they would always try to rid them of this world no matter what
as they were dangerous and stained the Rebels’ names to be
believed to be the same as the likes of the Serpents.
One night, Rita as usual sneaked in with the latest raiding
party who have targeted a famous village of Glenton in the lands
of Bournemouthshire which were known to be full of miracles and
most important of all – many riches. The night sky was clear
with a full moon and not a single cloud in the view which was
not necessarily advantageous to the scavengers of night. The
leader of the raiding party gave everyone a briefing before
letting them go. Just as Rita was about to leave herself, a hand
reached and caught her shoulder,
“And where might you be going at this time of night, young
lady?” a familiar voice did not sound impressed. Rita gulped
before turning around to face Belinda, the leader of the Rebels
and the current raiding party known as ‘15a’.
“Oh you know, sleep walking, the usual” Rita smirked as she
shook off Belinda’s hand.
“Tsk,” Belinda was not impressed, “How many times must I tell
you not to follow us? This job is dangerous and you still tag
along as if it’s nothing! You’re really going to get in big
trouble at this rate, kid.”
“Hush, I am not a kid anymore and I can take care of myself”
Rita started to climb up a wall, ignoring Belinda’s other
warnings; she did not like to be looked down on.
“I didn’t realise that the age of 11 was an exception to the age
group of children” Belinda said sarcastically.
“Yeah well, kids grow up faster these days” Rita stuck her
tongue out in a very childish manner before disappearing off
into the night. Belinda shook her head before disappearing
herself, there was no way she could persuade Rita who was famous
among the Rebels for her stubbornness.
As Rita was running across the village’s house’s roofs, she
felt as if she was being watched from the shadows. She decided
to ignore it and carry on; what she was after was the huge house
which stood out among the rest. It was probably of someone with
power and money so Rita knew that stealing a few gold here and
there wouldn’t cause them too much trouble. As Rita found a hole
she could squeeze through to sneak into the house, she heard
some noise behind her once again.
“Who’s there?” Rita turned around but found nothing but
emptiness. She decided it was not worth her time and worry and
carried on with her mission. The way was nor pleasant nor
comfortable but Rita managed to crawl through the tiny passages
and ended up in a place which looked like a kitchen. She looked
around to see if the coast was clear and having found that it
was, wasted no time to move through the shadows into the
spacious halls. Although the halls were decorated elegantly, the
surrounding still seemed shadowy and maze-like.
Rita sneaked into one of the rooms and began her looting. She
took random things around the room which looked expensive and
was about to get out the window when she heard:
“Halt!”
Rita froze as she heard an unknown voice which sounded as if
it could freeze anyone to death.
A figure approached Rita, a petite girl with silky black hair
and narrow eyes which were as cold as ice.
“What are you doing in this place?” her voice sent shivers
down Rita’s spine.
“I…” Rita gulped; she neither had the time to waste nor an
excuse for her current position. She gathered all her courage
and jumped right through the window, breaking the glass in the
process.
“Tsk…how troublesome…” Rita disappeared into the night while
still some glass bore into her skin, leaving a trail of blood
behind.
“Hmm…” the girl from the window looked down, smirking she
said, “Interesting… But you won’t get away for long…” as she
disappeared into the darkness of the room.
Rita had to hurry back; it was almost 2am, the gathering time
in order to return. The glass shards were really starting to
take effect on Rita as she was slowing down more and more while
her movement became more and more awkward until she stopped,
violently panting. She tried to remove the glass shards but they
were already in too deep for them to be removed normally. She
had to ignore the shards for now and carry on with her escape.
Once Rita reached the meeting point, she noticed that
something seemed off – not one member has shown even though it
was 5 minutes past the meeting time.
The thought of Have…they left without me? occurred in Rita’s
mind but she quickly pushed it away from her mind and decided
that she might as well return herself before the sun rose. It
was said that some people around the Sixth Realm had a curse
cast upon them by a powerful wizard many years ago which
prevented them from coming out into broad daylight; although
Rita was not a part of that curse, her people would be worried
if she has not returned while they could not search for her.
As Rita was approaching to the village’s main gates, she found
that shadows started to enclose on her.
Wha-what is this?! Rita thought as she tried to dodge several
attacks How is it possible that the shadows are moving?!
“Tsk… Why can’t you just go down already?” a voice complained
and a figure rose out of the shadows, it was the same petite
girl she had met earlier, “Heh, I see you’re somewhat confused,
huh?”
Rita’s eyes widened as the girl waved her hands and the
shadows moved at her command, entangling Rita’s feet making her
unable to move.
“Thieves like you…” the girl’s eyes glowed bright red, “Is
what I despise the most.”
The shadows started to pull Rita down into the ground which
started to swallow up her body.
What is this witchery?! Rita tried to free herself, not able
to succeed. This girl was clearly a necromancer – a dark mage
who controlled the undead, shadows and death itself. The girl
skipped towards Rita of whom only a head was seen.
“Let this be a lesson to you” she tapped on Rita’s nose,
“Noisiness can be a deadly disadvantage.”
Just before Rita’s head was engulfed in eternal darkness, an
arrow pierced though the necromancer girl’s hand, leaving her
screeching like a banshee. The distraction has stopped her
illusion and Rita found that she was now lying on the ground,
with no shadows holding her.
“Tut tut, Roxanne, you should not play your games at this
hour…” a figure of a girl with a bow on her head appeared, “You
will kill someone one day, I swear…”
Having little interest to what was going on and no time to
waste, Rita jumped on her feet and escaped through the village’s
gates.
The night sky was starting to darken as storm clouds appeared,
covering the moon. Rita knew that a storm was coming so she
started to run even faster, despite the sharp pain in her legs
from the glass shards.
As she was approaching the borders of Bournemouthshire after
hours of walking, she noticed a scarf lying around, one
resembling of the scarf which her friend and comrade Anastice
wore. Rita picked it up and examined it, there was something
off; Anastice did not come with this raiding party; in fact, she
was not in Bournemouthshire at all! She received a mission a
couple of days ago to rid the outskirts of Southern Hampton off
the Serpents residing there.
Rita realised that this must have been a trap and decided to
take a different route, wrapping the scarf around her neck. She
tried to hurry but found herself surrounded by men in robes of
gold thread.
“Well well well…. What have we here…” a voice was heard from a
man who reminded Rita of a monkey, “A little thief caught red
handed.”
“And I think I’ve found that monkey which escaped from our
cage a couple of days ago” Rita replied sarcastically; upon
hearing this reply, the man was enraged.
“Quiet, peasant! I, in the name of High Priest Glove,
Chancellor Pansy command to send this child down to the Tower of
Isolation immediately!” and so Rita was dragged away to receive
her punishment. She did not try to object nor escape as she knew
that she had reached her limit that night. Although she was
unsure of how and why they knew of her crimes but one thing that
comforted her was that they did not have her comrades since the
ambush did not happen earlier – it would have been noticeable by
the surroundings; her comrades never left anything behind let
alone get caught so easily.
If only it wasn’t for those cursed shards in my legs, I could
have taken a chance to escape Rita thought as she was locked
away in a prison cell.
#Post#: 1016--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Risible Adventures of Rita Arthurs (completed; in
editorial process of V2)
DIR By: Rita Arthurs
Date: June 14, 2013, 5:13 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]Chapter 2
An Ally’s Arrangement[/center]
Drip drop… Drip drop… was all that Rita could hear in her
prison cell as water droplets leaking from the ceiling formed a
puddle not far from Rita. She had to think of an escape plan,
there was no way she would be staying there for long!
Suddenly, a rock quivered on a wall next to Rita before it
fell out of place and bounced about a meter away from the wall.
Some more rocks later, Rita found that there was a head of a
girl which she met earlier with a purple bow sticking though the
hole, grinning broadly.
“I knew it was you who they put next to me! Say… you wanna get
outta ‘ere, right?” the girl smirked as she examined Rita who
was full of cuts and bruises, “They beaten you pretty badly or
do you simply enjoy pain?”
“Unless you’re trying to imply that I’m a masochist and
inflicted this pain on myself, I suggest you shut up and don’t
sound so sarcastic” Rita answered coldly, she did not like
anyone other than the Rebels.
“Tsk, I’m just messin’ with ya,” the girl pouted, “You’re no
fun… But beside your strange hobbies, you wanna know how to get
outta ‘ere?”
“Will you cut the accent already?!” Rita was starting to get
annoyed, “And stop playing the jokester while you’re at it!”
“You knew I was faking it? You’re pretty sharp… Darn it… And
here I wanted to see what it was like to talk like a farmer…”
the girl sulked but then smirked again, “I’ll ask you one last
time – you in or out?”
“How thick skulled are you? Of course I’d want to get out of
here! Isn’t it obvious?!” Rita roared.
“Hush, you’ll startle the guards and I dunno about you but I’m
pretty sick and tired of this place since I’ve been here for
hours!” the girl complained.
“Well…you know… I’ve been here for like 5 minutes but
whatever” Rita shrugged, “What’s your plan, shorty?”
“Shorty?” the girl looked annoyed, “You’re going overboard.
Just ‘cuz you’re freakishly tall, doesn’t mean that the rest of
us are short!”
Rita flinched at the mention of her height – she had what one
would refer to as a ‘Height Complex’. Putting everything aside,
Rita focused on the main task ahead.
“So what’s your plan?” she asked calmly.
“Weeeell… I… kind of dug out a tunnel…” the girl started to
mumble.
“Kind of?” Rita was starting to get annoyed again; this girl
was too much to bear with.
“Okay, I dug out a tunnel!” the girl pouted and pointed to a
hole in the ground in her cell, “You coming?”
Rita shook her head but started trying to squeeze though the
hole which connected both the cells. She jumped down and looked
down the ‘tunnel’ which the girl was referring to.
“Is this really going to get us out of here?” Rita asked.
“Should do,” the girl shrugged, “I mean I escaped from here
many times before.”
The girl jumped in the tunnel and Rita started to follow her
as well, not forgetting to put a massive rock to cover the
tunnel so it was not revealed. The tunnel was…well pretty much
pitch black and Rita could only pray to the God of Luck (who was
commonly worshipped in the outskirts in order to help them
steal) that they would get of here… alive.
“So you wanna know how I got here, right? Well… remember that
necromancer persona? Yeaaah… I… sort of got in trouble after
shooting her… hehe…” the girl kept talking but Rita did not pay
much attention to her.
Rita finally saw some light ahead.
“Ah! We’re nearly there! Oh! And by the way, what’s your
name?” the girl asked.
“…Rita” Rita said through clenched teeth, she did not like the
idea of some stranger knowing her name, “And yourself?”
“Pearson. Kiera Pearson.” the girl smirked with confidence as
she was walking with her back to front.
“Wall. Big Wall.” Rita said nonchalantly.
“Wha-?” Kiera suddenly bumped into a wall and fell over.
“You shouldn’t walk while not watching where you’re going”
Rita said while carrying on walking, not paying attention to
Kiera’s efforts to get up again.
“You know what?” Kiera finally caught up with Rita, “I don’t
think I like that attitude of yours!”
“Trust me, the feeling is mutual” Rita replied bluntly as they
kept walking, entering a huge forest.
The early morning light shining through the trees made the
forest seem more alive and magical; you could hear the singing
of the birds, the gentle breeze and a small stream flowing not
far by. Rita has never realised what it was truly to be free and
the thought that she might get attached to it frightened her as
she still had to return to the outskirts no matter what since
she was indebted to the people there. For some reason when Rita
thought of going back – it saddened her.
Rita heard a branch nearby crack, someone was approaching
them. She stopped rapidly.
“Whooa!” Kiera nearly walked straight into Rita, “What are you
doing?!”
“We… have guests…” Rita looked around, hands on her daggers.
An arrow flew right at Rita’s head but Rita’s reflexes were
quite good so she quickly countered the arrow with her dagger;
the arrow dropped on the ground. More arrows shot from another
direction while Rita dodged every single one of them, not
forgetting to get Kiera out of the field of fire.
“You have good reflexes but there’s no need to drag me
around!” Kiera half praised half moaned while Rita didn’t pay
much attention to her, as usual. She dragged Kiera with her as
she ran through the forest; although she didn’t know where she
was going, she had to somehow escape from that place since they
were most likely being tracked due to their little escape
earlier. After a lot of running, Rita decided that it was
probably wise to stop since when she looked back to see how
Kiera was doing – she looked like a bush or a tree with all the
leaves and dirt on her.
“You… little… mjshkm…” by now Kiera wasn’t even speaking a
language Rita could understand. Rita put Kiera down next to some
rock so she could rest and looked around where they were. Rita
gasped as she saw a marvellous meadow up ahead of her; the
midday sun made the meadow look like a scene out of a fairytale.
She decided that it would be a waste for her to miss out this
opportunity to enjoy herself and she went into the middle of the
meadow, enchanted by the surroundings. She smelled a few flowers
here and there until she finally gave in and jumped into the
flowers and rolled around for a while. Everything at the moment
was perfect… well would have been if she could only ignore the
prickling pain in her legs due to the glass shards which have
already gone in too deep to even get out.
Crack
…No no no, it’s nothing! Rita tried to ignore what she just
heard.
Crack. Swish. Crackle.
...Why can’t they just go away?! Rita jumped onto her feet at
once…forgetting her injury and after a loud “AAAAAARGH!!!”
falling back down, cursing whoever invented glass.
By now Rita could see that she was totally surrounded by men
and women dressed in a strange way. Their clothes were not of
the ones the people who captured her before wore – it was not
black and gold threaded but instead purple and had a more
bard-looking feeling to it. They wore hats with feathers
sticking out, those resembling the ones hunters usually wear.
Before Rita could observe and compare their clothes any
further, a young girl stepped in front of her.
“What are you doing in these lands, peasant?” she demanded.
Again with the peasant… Rita muttered, Do I really look like
one…?
“Well, y’know. Escaping the law, trying not to die, the usual”
Rita tried to sound and look as nonchalant as she could leaning
against some random rock which apparently was now there.
“Well I can understand how Kiera is a part of this,” the girl
motioned her head towards where Kiera lay, “But… who are you and
how did you get involved in this?”
“Wrong place, wrong time” Rita tried to smile playfully which
probably failed since the girl looked at her like she was some
kind of a freak.
“Either way, we need to go back and tend Kiera’s…” the girl
eyes Rita.
“Why are you checking me out? I understand that I may look
damn irresistibly attractive covered in all blood and mud but…”
Rita said with a hint of sarcasm.
“W-wha?!” the girl blushed, “No! Don’t get the wrong idea!
W-we need to also tend your wounds! That’s all!”
The poor girl turned around and stomped away which Rita found
amusing. People are so fun to observe… Especially when making
dirty suggestions like that… Oh my… No pun intended… Rita
thought, amused even more. Despite her look, she always just
loved to tease people… No, that does not mean she liked to be
teased herself. Belinda never really ‘got’ her jokes… most of
the time but Anastice and Malwa always enjoyed a laugh once in a
while.
The young girl turned out to be Emily, Kiera’s little sister
and leader of the scouts for the Amethyst Tribe; in fact – she
was leading a hunting party when they found Kiera and Rita but
Rita thought they were some tracking party and escaped so they
had to follow her since she had Kiera with her. The Amethyst
Tribe was believed to be a tribe of Dreamers and Creators. They
were skilled at all sorts of arts including hunting and target
range (which would explain Kiera’s bow and arrows… no not the
bow on her head, the one you shoot the arrows with).
The hunting party escorted Rita, Emily and Kiera back to
Amethyst Tribe’s part of Glenton; the streets were full of
street artists, musicians and performers who entertained the
public whether it was just for the sake of it or for the coins.
There was a show which particularly caught Rita’s eye – it was
the way a group of street dancers leapt through air gracefully
while their robes of see-through purple silk flowed behind them;
not only did Rita marvel at the sight of the event but that it
also had some magic behind it. In the middle – there stood
another dancer who was the one being tied up by all the robes
but she still skilfully could get out every time even if the way
the robes were tangled became more and more complicated every
time she escaped. It truly was a sight to see.
Leaving the surroundings aside, Rita was starting to become
concerned about her legs more since the glass shards were still
there; it is going to be painful to get them out. By the time
Rita saw a tall tower, she realised that it was only Kiera and 2
hunters who were with them; it seems that Emily somehow had the
time to escape Rita’s field of view with most of the scouts
while she was distracted by the Amethyst’s part of town’s
surroundings. Rita looked up at the tower and examined it. The
tower seemed to be older than it looked since the stone of which
it was made of has been eroded many times meaning that there
were many attempts to re-establish the tower. There was also
some moss here and there and even some vines entangled around
the tower. It reminded Rita of many fairytales which involved
trapped princesses at the top of the tower, waiting for their
prince to come by and save them… Hah, how despicable Rita
thought, disgusted. She never believed in fairytales, those were
stories for the fools and children. Don’t forget the children.
They could not help but believe such sweet lies. But of course
even Rita, at her age, would never be fooled due to the things
she has seen outside the peace and quiet of the safe towns and
villages. Rita had to fend for herself and her comrades in order
to survive so unless people had the same or similar experience
resembling Rita’s, they would not understand neither her nor her
views (unless of course they just took it for granted and
agreed; some call it ‘go with the flow’).
Rita and the others were taken inside the tower, the inside
seemed more well looked after compared to the outside; purple
cloths, lilacs and even flames decorated the walls around the
tower. They sure have a thing for purple… Rita thought as she
looked around. The stairs seemed to keep going into an abyss,
endless and forever ongoing but after about 10 minutes, they had
reached a golden purple door. Kiera approached the door and
closed her eyes as if she was concentrating on something and to
Rita’s great disbelief – the door opened after a while! Kiera
motioned for everyone to follow her and they entered a room full
of purple curtains and cushions. Kiera plopped down on one of
the pillows and grabbed a strange looking lamp and rubbed it.
For a second, Rita thought that in this crazy place, even a
genie could pop right out of there but what popped out wasn’t a
genie at all. It was a small purple elephant at which Rita
stared for a while.
“Magna, we need some heeling” Kiera did not bother with the
formalities and introductions let alone with the greetings. The
elephant frowned.
“Kiera, have you been climbing trees again?” Magna frowned.
“Unless trees can bite like greyhounds, yes” Kiera pointed out
a bite mark which Rita has not noticed. Kiera probably received
it from when she was being captured the first time; it was
likely that she put on a fight so the captors had to use more
sinister measures.
“The Order?” Magna sounded grave.
“The very same” Kiera nodded, “Now get to it!”
Magna sighed and came towards Kiera, the elephant touched
Kiera once and the effects were noticed immediately – Kiera’s
wounds started to close up and the dirt was disappearing.
“You have one wish left now before you say it, remember that
it must not be like last time!” the elephant lectured, “You
absolutely must indefinitely absolutely completely and utterly
NOT wish for-“
“I wish to have 5 more wishes!” Kiera quickly mouthed before
Magna could finish.
“... anymore wishes” Magna gave Kiera a death glare, the
elephant clearly knew Kiera’s habits and no doubt this isn’t the
first time Kiera done this.
“Yeah yeah” Kiera waved Magna off. Magna was muttering some
curses and just before returning to it’s lamp (it was unclear
what gender it was) when it noticed Rita, still staring at it
wide-eyed. The elephant approached Rita and examined her; it
stopped at Rita’s legs.
“Your legs are hurt?” the elephant asked Rita. Rita didn’t
know what to answer.
“What are you talking about? But heal her off anyway just in
case” Kiera started to playfully roll around in the pillows.
The elephant came closer to Rita but Rita stepped back, she
did not want anyone using any what she called witchery on her.
“Child, relax. I will not harm you” the elephant reassured
Rita. Rita was not sure what exactly but something about the
elephant reassured her that she could trust it. Probably the
ears.
Rita slowly lowered until she was sitting on her knees. The
elephant approached Rita once more and just as it did with
Kiera, touched Rita and healed her but this time there were also
some glass shards extracted from her legs. The elephant
disappeared after it’s job was done. Kiera looked at the shards
now lying next to Rita.
“You were running around with those in your leg?” Kiera was
surprised, horrified and impressed at the same time, “Must have
been hard on ‘ya.”
Rita ignored Kiera and stood up.
“Wh-where do you think you’re going?” Kiera was startled and
jumped up on her feet as well.
“I have no business here and I must return…ugh…” Rita could
not tell where she was returning, “Well…all you need to know is
that I just need to go now.”
“No ‘thank you’s whatsoever?” Kiera was not impressed, “You’re
rather rude, aren’t you?”
“I get that a lot and no, I don’t care” Rita answered the
question in Kiera’s eyes and spun around towards the door.
“I’m afraid you’re not allowed to leave” a firm voice was
heard from behind the opening door. Emily stepped out, looking
serious, “You can only be protected by Glenton if you remain
here and become part of it.”
“And why would I want that, little lady?” Rita did not like
the news she was hearing.
“Since your little effugere angered the Order further and if
they catch you, you will be sentenced to The Cloud which means
your little life will be over, you stulte!” Emily roared.
Although Rita could not understand which language exactly she
used half the time, she still pretty much figured that effugere
meant escape and stulte was most likely some insult.
“Sister dearest, can you stop confusing our guest, hmm?” Kiera
skipped towards her sister’s side.
“Imo! But I am not trying to!” Emily pouted. Kiera ruffled
Emily’s hair and faced Rita again.
“Pardon her ways of speech; you see we Amethystine love the
language you would refer to as Latin so you might come across a
few words you may not understand while speaking to our people”
Kiera explained in a matter-of-factly way. Rita rolled her eyes
since she figured that much out.
“Anyway, what do you suggest I do in this case then?” Rita was
very irritated by the whole situation.
“You need to join a tribus; no matter where you would be, they
would always protect you if you were one of them so the Order
would not dare lay their hands on you…physically” Emily
explained. Rita frowned, she did not like the way the things
were going.
“And how do I join a um… tribus?” Rita was pretty sure that it
meant one of the infamous tribes of Glenton. Emily grinned.
“Facile! You just need to pick one and pass their trial to see
if you are worthy!” Emily made it seem so easy but was it
really? Was what Rita wondered.
In order for Rita to pick a tribe which she would like to
enter, she had to spend some time with them and complete a task
for them which showed what type of jobs that tribe carried out.
It was arranged that the first tribe Rita would try out was the
Ruby Tribe which was infamous for it’s adventurers, explorers,
treasure hunters and socialites.
#Post#: 1017--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Risible Adventures of Rita Arthurs (completed; in
editorial process of V2)
DIR By: Rita Arthurs
Date: June 14, 2013, 5:14 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]Chapter 3
Ellancelot Explorer[/center]
In the lands of the Ruby Tribe, there is a name everyone knows
– Ellancelot who was nicknamed ‘Ellancelot Explorer’ since they
were famous for being a great treasure hunter. They also had
their ‘sidekick’ Diddicus VII (don’t question what happened to
the previous 6 nor why they are numbered) who goes by their
short name of ‘Did’. As it happens, the Ruby tribe usually tries
to recruit new members and in order to show just how exciting
the life of a Rubian is – they let Ellancelot take someone on an
adventure every week (usually Tuesday, don’t question it – it’s
just Ellancelot’s strange preference since most of their days
were rumoured to be full of things like dress-ups and gambling)
so of course Rita was sent off to find the two troublesome
adventurers in Ruby tribe’s part of Glenton. This part of
Glenton was quite lively with chatter here and there since
Rubians were very sociable people which did not apply to Rita.
The only reason Rita really agreed to even take notice of the
Ruby tribe was because of the adventure and the potential
treasure she could find on explorations which could aid her
comrades in the outskirts.
As Rita was looking at the address she was given where she
could find Ellancelot, she hasn’t noticed that she accidentally
turned the wrong way and was now out of Ruby’s part of Glenton.
The surroundings seemed a lot more gloomier and sinister as
shadows around were moving, people trying not to make eye
contact with anyone and shifting from one shadow to another,
minding their own business.
This was part of Topaz Tribe’s part of Glenton.
The Topaz Tribe were known to be full of thieves, assassins
and ninjas and slyness was one of their key characteristics.
That was after all the reason the Topaz tribe had the nickname
of ‘The Deadly Topaz Tribe’. Rita did not like this place very
much since it reminded her of where she came from – the
outskirts; this place was too similar and it reminded her of the
Serpents who were originally from this tribe. Rita was feeling
quite uneasy – she had to get out of this part of Glenton as
fast as she could but when she spun around to go back – she was
now a witness of a fight ready to start.
“Where’s my hat, you drunkards?!” a woman of strong build was
being held back by 4 robed personnel who seemed to be a part of
the bar from which they were trying to drag her away from.
“Madam, we do not have your hat. Now if you may kindly lea-”
the middle-aged man who was also covered in black and orange
robes was suddenly hit in the face with a large boot; the
woman’s boot to be precise.
“Lies! Where’s my lucky hat! Sob!” the woman was weeping; she
voices out her emotions? How amusing Rita thought as she was
about to get involved in something she would rather not have.
“Now now, children, let’s not get too excited here,” Rita
stepped forward with her hands up in defence just in case, “How
about we give the nice lady her hat back and she leaves.” C’mon!
It’s only a hat! What could you possibly get with that hat
anyway?! Rita thought.
“Ch-children?!” the man chocked on the word itself, “I’ll have
you know we do not have this madwoman’s hat!”
“Dude, it’s only a hat. Can’t you just get her a random one?”
Rita looked at the man with pity; this did not look like it was
going to end without a fight. What made her think that? Oh a
knife to your throat was usually the obvious clue.
“It’s not just any hat! It had jewels and stuff!” the woman
protested while 2 of the robed figures lost the struggle against
her arms and fell backwards trying to pull her away. With only 2
people left holding her, the woman easily swung them into the
nearest bins and run up to Rita and the middle-aged man.
The man has had it with the two trouble-makers and clicked his
fingers for back up; of course his call was answered with a lot
of ninjas and assassins surrounding the woman while Rita was
still trying to get her throat away from his knife. The woman
was not one of the weak ones and she was likely to be from the
near Ruby Tribe due to her red adventurers outfit. She easily
dodged the Topaz tribe’s attacks which showed that she was
either an experienced fighter or was trained to encounter
enemies similar to the Topaz tribe. After the assassins and the
ninjas have dealt their blow, it was the woman’s turn to change
to the offensive and she sprinted at them with her whip
withdrawn; the only thing Rita could think of at the time was
the thought of S&M… Although the ninjas who are trained
professionals have dodged her attacks, the assassins weren’t so
lucky since they were only trained to kill but not as much to
engage in long range combat. The woman tried and tried to get
the ninjas but she could not succeed due to their mastery of
shadows.
This was no time to daydream, Rita had to focus on her own
fight which she was apparently engaged in and was starting to be
in a disadvantage at. The middle-aged man turned out to be a
pretty decent fighter himself, ignoring the fact that he did not
fight very fairly with using poisonous daggers which also had
some acid to eradicate the opponent or their surroundings
completely meaning that Rita had a lot of jumping to do once the
thing she was on was about to collapse. Rita jumped from barrel
to barrel surrounding the man as she tried to deal her attacks
with her somewhat useless daggers which countered the acid for
too many times and weren’t as sharp enough let alone strong to
deal any kind of damage. Time was running out, Rita had to think
fast since the woman was at her peak and was about to collapse
any time if she has moved in the wrong direction just a tiny
bit. The only way to stop the ninjas was to take out the
mastermind behind them which should have been the middle-aged
man. Rita knew from basic alchemy she learned that the only way
to neutralise the acid on the man’s daggers was to use some
source of an alkali which was how she ended up in the kitchens
of the bar from which the woman was dragged out of. Rita quickly
grabbed something that looked like it was used for cleaning and
charged at the man who followed her, making sure to spill it all
on his weapons. By theory it should have taken some effect so
she grabbed some knives lying around and charged at the man with
full force. The knives seemed to hold against the weapons
meaning that she has succeeded and that the man was enraged. The
metal of the weapons kept ringing loudly. Clash! Clang! And the
man’s weapons were at least a couple of meters away from him.
“Now then,” Rita took the man by the collar, not forgetting to
put a knife to his throat, “Why don’t you discharge those ninjas
of yours, hmm?”
But the man was not so eager to give up and threw something in
Rita’s eyes which blinded her for a few moments. Those moments
were enough for the man to grab Rita’s weapons while she
staggered and hissed from the pain and now held them up to her
throat instead.
“I don’t think so” the man was about to deal the final blow
when he was suddenly knocked out by a glass bottle breaking
against his head. As the man dropped, there stood a strange
looking girl in red clothes similar to the woman who was now
standing next to her.
“And stay there! Hmph!” the woman marched across the bar, not
forgetting to stomp over the man, fetching something hidden in
the kitchens. “I knew it was them!” the woman cried as she
returned with a stunning red hat decorated with all sorts of
jewels and most importantly a lovely massive golden feather.
“Yes, you certainly did not want to lose that prized
possession of yours, my lady” the girl bowed to the woman,
clearly displaying who was in charge here.
“Of course! These jewels are worthless but the golden feather
of a Phoenix is priceless!” Rita nearly chocked on air as she
heard the woman say with pride. Since when are jewels
worthless?! Rita could not but eye the woman carefully, she was
probably very rich. The woman finally took notice of Rita and
happily skipped towards Rita which made all her thoughts about
her being a rich lady disappear since even though Rita was no
nobility and was often referred to as a ‘peasant’, she certainly
knew that a rich lady would not normally behave in such a
manner.
“Now dearie, who might you be? You really helped me out here!”
the woman took Rita’s hands and shook them happily, “Do you by
any chance wish to become my apprentice like the lovely Diddicus
there?” the woman motioned towards the girl standing beside her,
observing the scene and Rita’s reaction. D-did she just say
Diddicus? By…any chance…?! Rita looked at the woman with shock.
“A-are you by any chance Ellancelot?” Rita asked the woman.
“Why yes! So you have heard of me, huh? That’s great!” the
woman was full of joy while Rita could not believe her ears. She
would have thought that the names Ellancelot and Diddicus
sounded more…well manly. Never judge by appearance…and make that
name too… Rita thought to herself. “…now as I was saying, we
should return to our task!”
“Wait…what?” Rita only started to pay attention to Ellancelot
once she said the last sentence.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was saying that as much as I would love to
stay and treat you to something, myself and Did here need to
carry on with our mission so we cannot stay here much longer…”
Ellancelot looked at Rita with remorseful eyes.
“B-but! You’re supposed to take me on a mission! That’s what
this letter from the Ruby tribe instructed!” Rita showed
Ellancelot the piece of paper which made her end up in this mess
in the first place.
“Ah… That is supposedly after I have finished the task I have
now. It is… not suitable for you yet…” Ellancelot tried her
hardest not to insult Rita by saying she’s a weakling but Rita
was no fool and could understand her implications.
“No…it’s fine… I understand…” Rita said, disinterested in any
sympathy.
“Very sorry. Cheerio!” and so Ellancelot and Did left Rita to
carry on with their mission. Great…Now what? Rita walked out of
the bar, rather disappointed with her finding. She had nowhere
to go and nothing to do. It seemed like it was late evening in
the Topaz suburbs but it was probably just some magic which was
ordered by the Topaz citizens since they preferred it darker.
As Rita was walking down a street, she noticed that she was
being followed. She decided to pretend she has not noticed and
started to go around in circles in order to confuse the follower
hoping that they would give up and leave. That was not the case;
the follower kept after Rita no matter what. Great! Now I have a
stalker… Rita thought as she decided to face the so called
‘stalker’ so she turned and walked into a dead end.
“Who are you and why are you following me?” Rita exclaimed,
still facing the wall. After a while, she heard some movement
and turned around to find a petite girl in ninja garments who
had silky black hair and narrow eyes similar to the necromancer
she met once. These eyes however were much colder than the
necromancer’s.
“You have good instincts, the Elders were wise to choose you”
the girl praised Rita, “I expect you knew you were being
watched?”
“Of course,” Rita said proudly, “But for a skilled person as
yourself, you were moving rather…clumsily… no offence.”
“None taken. The Elders wanted to test you but since they did
not expect you to be on a level as to detect a full trained
ninja, they asked me to lower my…erm… ‘slyness’ you could say”
the girl coughed and motioned to follow her. It may not have
been easy for a normal individual to follow a ninja but
surprisingly, Rita could keep up with her. Then again, the girl
did mention that she was not showing her full potential, one
should not underestimate a ninja. The girl looked back once in a
while to check whether Rita was keeping up with her until they
had reached a back of some large building.
“You will now meet the Elders” the girl opened a secret
passage. After some thought she turned around and said before
disappearing into the night, “Watch your tongue.”
Rita shrugged and walked into the passage which has been
revealed. It was quite dark but thanks to the candles, Rita
could make her way through without tripping on the bones lying
around. The passageways were not as fancy as the ones she has
seen in the Amethyst tower but they were decorated with orange
marks which Rita thought were likely to be some secret messages.
The passageway was not one of the most pleasant places to walk
through with all the cobwebs and rats but Rita somehow made it
to a small orange and gold door. Rita pushed the door forward
and walked out into a dark room. It seemed like a void if it
wasn’t for the floating orange fires which provided at least
some light into the room. In front of her, Rita saw that there
were 5 hooded figures in robes of black and orange (not gold
which most likely would have meant it was the Order trying to
ambush her).
“Sit.” one of the Elders ordered Rita and motioned for her to
sit where she was. After some thought and remembering what the
girl which she met earlier has warned her of, Rita sat down. The
floor was rather cold and Rita felt as though she was in some
graveyard rather than a secret hideout.
“We have heard that you were in search of a tribe, is that
correct, young one?” another Elder asked Rita.
“Yes… That is true…” Rita was surprised that she was not
referred to as a peasant again, in a good way.
“Your first assigned tribe was supposed to be Ruby but we
received news that they were not ready yet to take you in”
another Elder snorted, “As expected of that poor excuse of a
tribe.”
“We, however, are different and are ready to show you what
it’s truly like to be a Topazian” the fourth Elder said firmly,
“And of course we value people with skills such as yours so I am
sure you will have no trouble pleasing our assessor.”
“So? Do you accept to take Topaz Tribe’s Trial?” the last
Elder asked. Rita thought that there would be no harm in her
taking it plus it’s not like she was being forced to join their
tribe…yet. The order in which she took the trials did not matter
so she easily accepted the offer.
#Post#: 1018--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Risible Adventures of Rita Arthurs (completed; in
editorial process of V2)
DIR By: Rita Arthurs
Date: June 14, 2013, 5:14 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]Chapter 4
The Lady and her Lake[/center]
After meeting the Elders, Rita was escorted to a guest room.
There she wondered what her comrades were doing at the time,
they were probably worried. She wished she could somehow contact
them but right now it was impossible. If Rita could be accepted
to a tribe then maybe she could even convince them to take in
her comrades and work together to get rid of the life of poverty
in the Sixth Realm. Thinking of the bright future ahead, Rita
doze off into the night. The morning came quickly and Rita was
summoned to be given her briefing.
“Our scouts lately have discovered a lake which is North East
of Glenton” one of the Elders began to explain, “There have been
some strange things happening lately and we want you to
investigate what is really going on.”
Rita was displeased that her first mission would be an
investigation but then again – you never know how things might
turn out. As she was given the supplies she required, she began
to wonder who her ‘assessor’ might be. It didn’t take long for
her question to be answered as the door opened revealing a
familiar figure.
“Missed me?” the petite ninja girl smirked as she leaned
against a wall.
“Not really… I hardly know you” Rita answered honestly, her
bluntness wiped the smirk off the girl’s face.
“Good point but don’t get too excited since I’m not your
assigned babysitter” the girl nodded in the direction of the
window on which another girl now sat.
“Greetings, Topazians! I come in peace!” the girl laughed a
hearty laugh, “They call me Jamanda Woman! But Jamanda is just
fine too.”
“Show off,” the petite ninja rolled her eyes, “She’s a fellow
Topazian too and she has this weird habit of having an accent
but don’t listen to a word she say-”
“We shoud’ be equal, mun! We need to luv our broders and
sisters and respect everyone!” Jamanda suddenly started talking
in a very strange accent which Rita has never heard before.
“There she goes again…” the petite ninja sighed.
“Umm…I was wondering…what is your name?” Rita asked the petite
ninja but she was nowhere to be seen now.
“Bah! Forget ‘bout dat, mun! How ‘bout we get going, ya?”
Jamanda dragged Rita out of the room and outside where the rest
of the scouts were waiting. One of them was chewing on her shoe.
“Mun, like, what ya doin’?” Jamanda asked the strange girl.
“Chewing, what does it look like?” the girl said with pride.
“She’s asking why you’re doing that, you fool!” Rita could not
stand this type of people.
“No reason. They call me Liwie the Weirdo after all for a
reason” the girl carried on chewing her shoe.
“Mun, I like dat attitude, yah. From now’a on, I’ll call ya
Olive” Jamanda said and walked away leaving Rita thinking Why
Olive? while ‘Olive’ did not mind at all and carried on with her
very exciting and productive activity. Jamanda finally signalled
for the scouts to move on and they all disappeared at once.
“H-huh?!” Rita looked around where there was nothing but
clouds of dust left due to the fast movement of the scouts.
“C’mon, mun! Move along!” Jamanda motioned for Rita to follow
her. The method of travelling for Topazians was unbelievably
fast and similar to how Rita travelled with her comrades – what
she called ‘Tree Transportation’ where you basically run and
jump through trees at immense speed. They ran like that for
quite a while before reaching a large lake.
“Like what’s up with dat lake, mun” Jamanda peeked at the lake
from the bushes not far from it while Rita noticed that all the
scouts were once again behind Jamanda. “Like all scouts try to
look around for any strange activity, yah.”
And so the scouts disappeared again. Rita tried to look out
for anything suspicious but there was no strange activity going
on as they were told. It went on like that until it was evening
and Jamanda decided that enough was enough and they needed to
start camp. As everyone was resting, Rita sat by the campfire
polishing and sharpening her dagger. She was bored so she
decided to give it a name, Carnwennan was the first thing that
came to her mind. Carnwennan it is then! Rita thought cheerfully
as she put it away. She decided that she should take a midnight
walk since no sleep came to her. The night was rather peaceful
and the lake was still. A gentle breeze blew and Rita sat down
by the lake, watching it curiously. There was some strange
feeling which she felt by being near the lake, one that she
could not explain nor describe. She reached out her hand towards
the lake when unexpectedly a face rose from the lake. Rita in
shock stumbled backwards and grabbed her dagger. The figure rose
from the lake, revealing a tall blonde beauty. Rita noticed as
the lady was coming towards her from the lake that she wore a
lovely turquoise dress. The lady stopped right before the shore,
not coming out of the lake. The lady stared at Rita with her
blue eyes until she finally spoke.
“How long are you going to stare at me?” she said, clearly
irritated, “You think I like standing here, being stared at? At
least come closer!”
Rita took a few steps forward but kept her distance from the
lady, just in case.
“Sooo…” the lady fiddled with her hair, “What’s your name?”
Rita stared at the lady in disbelief. First she comes out of
the lake with no explanation what-so-ever and now she wants to
know my name? Rita shook her head.
“Arthurs. What does it matter?” Rita decided not to give the
lady her first name.
“Arthur? My! You look so feminine!” the lady gasped.
“No no no. It’s a surname, and it’s Arthurs and I am a g-”
Rita tried to clear up the misunderstanding but it was too late.
“Yes! It was Arthur who I needed to meet indeed! I am the Lady
of the Lake, you see! My actual name is Niki but since I’m LOL –
Lady of the Lake, everyone just calls me NikiLOL.” Niki
explained to Rita, interrupting Rita trying to clear up the
misunderstanding Niki seemed to have, “You are a bit younger
than I expected but I have something for you!”
The lady fiddled around in the water, as if trying to find
something and then took out a large beautiful sword.
“This here is the good old Excalibur! Take it; it is yours,
young Arthur!” Niki offered Rita the sword. Rita decided that
since there was no way of clearing the misunderstanding, she
might as well play along and get a sword out of it.
“So why exactly do I need it?” Rita looked suspiciously at the
sword in her hand which seemed to glow a little in her hands.
“Since you will need it! You are the re-incarnation of King
Arthur so you will need your old sword back!” Niki was already
starting to submerge back into the lake before Rita could ask
any further questions. This is just crazy! King Arthur? Lady of
the Lake? What kind of a joke is this?! Rita was not sure
whether she was supposed to believe that crazy story or not but
at least she had a sword now; it would surely prove useful to
her later on.
Rita decided to make her way back to camp and the next morning
Jamanda received a message that everything was clear now and
that they should return. The whole scouting trip seemed all
suspicious especially since Rita apparently passed so she would
have been welcomed to Topaz with open arms if she wished to
enter it. When Rita arrived back, she received a letter telling
her that the next tribe which she will have to try out would
finally be the Ruby tribe as promised since Ellancelot was
finally back from her mission.
#Post#: 1019--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Risible Adventures of Rita Arthurs (completed; in
editorial process of V2)
DIR By: Rita Arthurs
Date: June 14, 2013, 5:15 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]Chapter 5
Dens and Dragons[/center]
Rita’s expectations of events to occur were not met when she
returned to Glenton. She was, of course, congratulated on the
success of their mission (of which she was suspicious since they
haven’t really done anything) and brought to a great feast.
During the week, she explored the streets of Glenton in order
not to get lost again and has learned them all since she was a
fast learner. What bothered Rita was when the Ruby tribe’s
mission was going to start. By rumours which could be easily
found in the Ruby tribe, Ellancelot has still on her mission and
was not returning for quite a while – a fact which disappointed
Rita a lot.
While on one of her daily walks around Glenton, Rita was
walking through her favourite part of town – Amethystine Square
which was part of Bournemouthshire Square. The Amethystine part
of the square was as lively as ever with many dancers and street
performers. Rita wondered whether she should join the Amethyst
tribe since it appealed to her a lot, she was secretly quite
creative and marvelled at the sight of anything to do with art
but the thought of having to meet the annoying Kiera a lot and
deal with the small tribe leader made her think twice about it.
Rita saw the same dancers with the purple silk robes which she
admired quite a few days ago and as they were about to leave in
the evening, she decided to gather her courage and approached
them.
“Umm…hello?” Rita said nervously as the dancers drew their
attention to her. A young girl stepped out in front of Rita,
supposedly the leader.
“What is it that you want?” the girl asked putting her hands
on her hips.
“I was just wondering how you did all those tricks before; I
love your dance a lot, you see…” Rita started mumbling, she was
not sure exactly what she wanted from the dancers either but she
did want to at least acquaintance with them. The dancers were
not very sure about what exactly to answer themselves so they
simply invited Rita with them to a bar. Of course Rita could not
drink much from there since she was only 11 but nonetheless that
did not affect her conversation with the dancers. They were a
friendly bunch and very strange to say the least but Rita
admired them a lot and the dancers even shared some of their
secrets with her – they explained to her the technique of being
able to escape anything which tangled Rita even if she was
captured and tied up, a technique which would prove useful later
on. After many hours of laughter and chatter, Rita decided it
was time she headed back since it was already midnight. As Rita
walked down the streets of the Ruby tribe, Rita noticed some
movement. She decided to follow discovering that the figure was
some thief. For now, Rita decided to just follow the thief which
led her to Bournemouthshire Square. Rita nervously checked the
time, it was indeed 2 in the morning and now she was feeling a
bit nauseous, could this have been another raiding party? Rita
started to wonder whether she should show herself and escape
with her people; she could finally live the life which she was
used to yet she could not help but think that there may be a
better way of life which she could find and help the rest of the
Sixth Realm. She noticed that even after a while, only the same
thief stood there, checking the loot; they were probably the
only one there. Rita wondered if it really was the same raiding
party since the people of the Sixth Realm usually moved in
groups at least of two or more people. As Rita moved closer, she
noticed that the thief was none other than Anastice. Rita
approached Anastice who at first startled, drew out her daggers
but she then recognised who was standing in front of her.
“Rita?” she was shocked, maybe even slightly disappointed.
Even after a while, her demeanour remained serious and she still
did not relax her position, “What are you doing here?”
“Pardon?” Rita choked out the word, “What do you mean? And
what’s with that manner of speech? Don’t tell me it’s because I
stole your fashion sense of wearing a scarf?”
“Pff, hardly” Anastice smirked but returned to being serious
just as fast, “You have not returned from the last raiding
party; everyone regarded you as either dead or a traitor.”
Rita could not believe her ears, even if she had not returned
she did not expect that the people would judge that so cruelly
and not even try to look for her. Something didn’t seem right
and Rita could sense it, her face hardened and she decided that
she needed to know the situation in the outskirts.
“What happened while I was gone?” Rita asked Anastice. The
question surprised Anastice but not for long.
“For some reason, we were tracked by some freaks in robes and
many of our people have fallen…” Anastice’s voice wavered as she
recalled her memories, “When I came back, there were little
survivors… you were not found neither among the dead nor the
living so some may have thought that your little sneak outs were
suspicious and believed you were a traitor… your shady past did
not help the judgement.”
“What?” Rita could not believe what she was hearing; she did
not like the idea of being regarded as a traitor among her
people, it was too painful, “B-but I did nothing of the sorts! I
was imprisoned the entire time!”
“I can see that” Anastice said sarcastically as she scowled at
Rita.
“W-well I was! I escaped!” Rita tried to justify herself while
stuttering.
“Then why didn’t you come back?!” Anastice roared, she was
clearly shaking with anger now, “Do you have any idea how hard
it was for us for these past few days?! It is practically a
desert out there! WASTELANDS! There is neither food nor water!
And out situation with the night and day does not help!”
Rita took a step back from Anastice’s anger; tears were
swelling up in her eyes. Before her tears fell, Anastice turned
around and grabbed the sack with goods inside it.
“A-anyway…” she recomposed herself but did not turn to face
Rita, “You better not return for quite a while, things could
get…messy…”
Rita did not say anymore as Anastice disappeared into the
night, she now knew that she had nowhere to return to and only
had to keep moving forward.
As morning came, Rita sat on the fountain of the square,
thinking of everything that Anastice has said. Who tracked and
attacked the outskirts? For what reason? These were all the
questions which Rita could not answer no matter how many times
she thought about it. As she was about to head back to the Ruby
headquarters, she froze. She suddenly remembered one tiny detail
which she has missed – ‘we were tracked by some freaks in robes’
and everything became clear now. It was the work of none other
than the Order. But what did the Order want with the outskirts?
There obviously had to be a reason why they have attacked the
Sixth Realm since they were more powerful and could have easily
taken over if they had just asked for the land since the
residents knew they would not stand a chance. Why did they have
to involve the bloodshed and what did they want with the land in
the first place? Rita could not help but feel uneasy believing
that her last mission and the attack all had something to do
with it; there was a plan in action, she was sure of it but she
did not like it. Rita decided that if she had the chance, she
would investigate the outskirts as soon as she could since
everything seemed too suspicious at the moment.
Rita was startled when a figure launched themself from behind
at her in order to hug her, nearly knocking her off balance in
the process.
“Long time no see!” the figure was none other than Ellancelot
herself. After releasing Rita, she put her hands on her hips and
laughed her usual hearty laugh, “So what brings you here again,
my friend? Don’t tell me it’s after that drink I offered” she
winked.
“Err…” Rita was dumbfounded but Ellancelot only laughed.
“Relax, dearie! I’m here to tell you that we can finally go on
our big and exciting adventure!” Ellancelot was clearly proud of
herself. About time too Rita thought as she scowled. Ellancelot
told Rita to follow her and she led her back to the Ruby Central
Pavilion where they met Did and took all the supplies which they
required. As Ellancelot led the way into the Great Forest, Rita
has finally recovered from shock and wondered where they were
heading and what their actual task was. As Rita was about to
ask, Did suddenly pointed out in a direction.
“Pardon me, my good sir…err…madam…” Did corrected herself as
Ellancelot gave her a glare, “But are we not supposed to be
heading East to the mountains?”
After some thought, Ellancelot took out a map which had
Bournemouthshire on it and gasped.
“My God! You’re right! We were about to go into the terrible
swamps of the West!” Ellancelot laughed as she tucked away the
map into her rucksack. The journey was long and hard and Rita
remembered that she was going to ask Ellancelot about what they
were doing.
“Well…nothing really… Just some exploring and stuff”
Ellancelot shrugged at Rita’s question, “We’re in a way treasure
hunters and explorers at the same time.”
Rita was not sure whether she liked that explanation but she
decided that it did not matter and that it better be over soon
since she was not sure whether she could survive through
Ellancelot’s tales of how she explored that cave or why this or
that rock was lying there. Did was silent all the way through
the journey, always keeping her eyes on the map in case
Ellancelot would get lost again; who knew that the great
adventurer Ellancelot Explorer had no sense of direction
what-so-ever.
As dusk approached, Rita, Ellancelot and Did have reached some
mountains which Rita figured they were going to climb the next
morning. The night could have been peaceful if it wasn’t for the
snakes which Rita had to fend off with Did while Ellancelot
slept away with no worries. By dawn, Rita had not slept a wink
and as she was about to finally rest, Ellancelot rose up and
declared that it was time to move on. You have got to be kidding
me… Rita thought as she moaned and sulked while they started to
climb the mountains ahead of them which were a strange orange-y
colour. It was a long climb but the group has finally reached a
flat place where they could rest for a while. It also happened
to have a cave which Ellancelot announced they’d explore. By
this point all Rita could think of was Someone…just kill me now…
as she followed Ellancelot and Did deep into the cave.
“Halt!” Ellancelot was suddenly serious and stopped the other
two, “Did you hear that?”
Everyone tried to sharpen their hearing and finally heard some
noises resembling…
“Snoring?” Rita gasped; they were not alone in the cave. The
three hopeless adventurers started to walk closer to the walls
of the cave and as quietly as possible. For Rita it was an easy
job but for Ellancelot and Did it was a different matter since
they were used to proudly walk through any weather conditions
and surroundings welcoming danger. Rita started to observe her
surroundings in order to get a better idea of who they might
have to deal with. There were a lot of bones lying around so it
was likely that it was some creature; furthermore, Rita noticed
that there were a lot of things like metal lying around, likely
previously serving as mail to soldiers of some sort, which was
burned severely. What puzzled Rita was how on earth there were
so many objects which were burned and why some of them had large
scrapes as if some sort of really hard scales or even claws have
attacked them. Little did Rita know that her questions were
about to be answered as she bumped into Did and Ellancelot who
were frozen with fear and shock since right in front of them was
none other than…
“A-a dragon?!” Rita chocked out as she saw the colossal
creature which was thought to only exist in legends and
fairytales – a mighty beast known as a Dragon.
“Do not make any unnecessary movements for now” Ellancelot
firmly commanded while Rita and Did were already frozen to the
ground they were standing on without that instruction, “This
mighty creature cannot be defeated with faulty tactics, just
look around.”
Ellancelot was right; all those who have underestimated the
creature and failed to escape or slay the dragon were now but
mere history represented with the boned and damaged armour.
“So far, we have managed to approach the creature undetected
so we better remain that way and get away in the same manner as
I believe we are no match for this type of mighty creature”
Ellancelot was very serious, something Rita has not seen before
and admired about her. Staying cool headed in this kind of
situation was the best at the moment. As Rita and the others
started to retreat, the dragon has stirred in its sleep making
everyone jump and squeak in a most un-lady like fashion.
Luckily, the creature did not pay attention to that and carried
on sleeping; the group exhaled a sigh of relief. Just as they
were nearing the only entrance and exit of the cave, Did got her
leg caught on one of the bones lying around and fell with a loud
thud! Everyone froze as it became mute in the cave. After a
while, everything began to shake and as Rita looked into
Ellancelot’s eyes, she could clearly read We need to get a move
on! Rita and Ellancelot dragged Did with them on the way out as
fast as they could but it was too late. The creature has awoken
and let out a loud cry which terrified them to their souls. As
the creature marched towards them, the cave and everything
around them shook so hard that the three could not stand their
ground firmly and fell. As the creature approached them, Rita
withdrew her sword which started to glow intensely, blinding the
creature.
“W-what is this?! You possess such a powerful artefact?!”
Ellancelot’s eyes widened as she examined the sword for a few
brief moments before she turned away as it was too bright for
the naked eye. Rita had no time to waste and decided that this
was a good opportunity to escape.
“MOVE!” Rita shouted loudly as the creature screeched and
blindly started to try to hit the three adventurers with its
mighty paws and sharp claws. Did and Ellancelot wasted no time
and hurriedly jumped up and escaped the cave. By the time they
have done so, the beast’s commotion caused a cave in and the
exit was sealed off completely leaving Rita’s sword as the only
source of light. Rita had to think quick – she had no escape
plan nor attack tactic and the creature could breathe out it’s
fire at any moment. As the creature started to get used to the
sword’s light, Rita dashed towards the creature’s body and
attempted to pierce it’s heart with her sword. If it was any
other mere sword, it would have surely bended and became useless
but Rita’s sword only landed a scratch on the dragon’s scales
which angered the creature immensely. This was probably the
first time in her life that Rita was afraid for her life as much
as she was now but it was no time to be dumbfounded so she made
a run for it and dodged the creature’s body as she run deep into
the cave. There she discovered that there were more passageways
leading deeper into the cave. Hearing the creature’s roar behind
her, Rita did not have time to look around and decide where to
go and just prayed to the God of Luck and ran through the
passageways, guessing where to turn. Rita stopped when she saw
that there was a dead end ahead of her (well more of a cliff
edge since there was a massive void ahead and the ground ended
there). She looked back to see the expected – the creature has
followed her in order to get revenge for disturbing it’s sleep.
A plan formed in Rita’s head while she examined whether the
legends were true and dragons had wings; the dragon appeared to
be wingless. Rita smirked at how crazy her idea was.
“HEY! You!” Rita shouted loudly as the dragon looked at her,
“Yeah, you ugly creature. COME AND GET ME!”
And with those words Rita jumped into the abyss as the dragon
roared and started to approach the edge of the cliff as well.
The creature however was not as stupid as it looked and only
merely gazed down. The dragon noticed that there was still
something glowing beneath it but before it could react, the
cliff edge has broken off meaning that the rocks and the dragon
fell to their demise into the eternal abyss. Not long after
that, alive and well Rita started to climb back up. When she
jumped, she used the magic which the dancers have taught her in
order to control her scarf instead of a robe to cling to a rock.
She then used her sword to strike the rocks of the cliff in
order for it to collapse since the sword, as she found out, was
quite strong. Now that her plan worked, she looked down and was
shocked to see that something glowing was floating back up – it
was her sword. The sword landed in Rita’s palm and stopped
glowing. This is some sword… Rita shook her head and decided to
head back. The only problem now was how she was supposed to
return since the exit was blocked with all the boulders and
pushing them all aside would take forever. She decided that
instead she should explore the rest of the cave, secretly hoping
to find another way out. The cave turned out to be more of a
maze and after a while, Rita came across something she did not
expect to find – an underground city.
#Post#: 1020--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Risible Adventures of Rita Arthurs (completed; in
editorial process of V2)
DIR By: Rita Arthurs
Date: June 14, 2013, 5:16 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]Chapter 6
Subterranean Secrets[/center]
The walls of the city were full of diamonds and jewels shining
brightly. The towers of the city reached up the high rocks of
the cave’s ceiling. The city was surrounded by many rails giving
the impression of a mine. Of course there were bats flying
around here and there while some even just hang on some of the
spikes of the ceiling. The city itself appeared to be full of
life with the sound of steam and machines. It did not seem to be
inhabited by many people and the only ones who Rita saw were
people in robes of black and gold. It was the Order. Rita
decided to sneak in for a closer look and hopefully discover
what is going on here. The Order obviously had something to hide
if they have gone as far as to build a city underground. Looking
closer, Rita noticed that what they were after were the jewels;
this was indeed a mine. The jewels kept being transported on a
device which resembled a lift which went up through the only
hole which let the light in. The light was quite dim but that
was most likely due to the fact that it was already night time.
As Rita slid her way through the shadows, closer towards the
city, she noticed some people in black and gold robes discussing
something. Although people say that eavesdropping is bad
manners, in this case Rita could not help but listen in to the
conversation.
“Ruby…dragon…gone…” Rita tried her best to listen but she was
in no hearing range. In fact, it was pure luck that she could
even hear as much as a few words from the conversation. She
guessed that they were just talking about them and that they
knew the Ruby tribe’s treasure hunters were around and have
already slain the dragon. What caught Rita’s attention was the
following.
“Glove…outskirts…the Fountain…full moon…” the other figure
responded. This time Rita could not understand with the few
words which she heard what was going on exactly. Before she
could think anything through, a loud noise could be heard one
resembling of a bell which made all the people in black and gold
robes run to the centre of the city. Rita saw a few clothes
including the robes hanging, probably drying after being washed
and decided this was a chance she could not miss so she grabbed
one of the robes, put them on (with the hood up of course) and
ran towards where everyone has gathered as fast as she could.
“Hear ye! Hear ye! A message from High Priest Glove!” a
messenger was standing in front of everyone who has gathered.
Rita started to pay close attention in order to find out what
the Order was up to, “‘Thine jewels musteth be gathereth no
longer by the full moon! The time is upon us and our rule is
near’. That is all.”
And with those words, the messenger left the crowd who started
to mumble things like:
Full moon?! That is too soon!
We cannot be done on time!
Ludicrous! Impossible!
We are so near though…
Rita had no idea what was going on and she did not like it,
there was definitely something going on. Rita lowered her hood
as much as she could and tapped on one of the residents on the
shoulder. An elderly woman turned around to face Rita.
“What is it, child?” the woman did not sound pleased to be
disturbed.
“If you may pardon my ignorance, what is going on?” Rita asked
sheepishly, trying to sound as apologetic as she could.
“My! Never have I seen someone so behind on the current
events! Are you by any chance a new recruit?” the woman was
taken aback.
“I am, madam.” Rita bowed a little to show respect for ‘her
elder’, “Will you please explain to me?”
“Child, do you not pay attention at your briefing?” the woman
looked displeased with her lips tight and her hands crossed
while she tapped her foot impatiently waiting for Rita’s answer.
“I easily forget, you see. Like I said, will you pardon my
ignorance and have enough mercy in you to tell me?” Rita did not
give up.
“Well!” the woman proudly put her hands on her hips, “If you
must know, High Priest Glove has demanded that we gather as many
jewels in here as we can. The dwarves who used to reside here
are now either long extinct or have fled this forsaken place and
poor excuse of a city. The jewels will be used at the Ritual
which the High Priest shall perform in the next Full Moon. The
site chosen for that is still unknown but apparently the
outskirts of the Sixth Realm hold the key entrance to this
mine.”
Rita did not listen any further, her head was already spinning
and she once again started to feel nauseous. The outskirts of
the Sixth Realm… So that is why they attacked the residents
there… Rita finally understood what was going on. Well part of
it anyway – the Order was up to no good once again. Rita
suddenly remembered the ‘our rule is near’ from the message; was
it possible that this Ritual would grant them some sort of power
in order for them to take over? If that was true, then Rita had
to stop them no matter what as well as avenge her fallen
comrades. But the problem was that the woman did not know where
exactly the Ritual would be held. Rita thanked the elderly lady
and decided to examine the city very closely. After many hours,
Rita has memorised the city’s passageways and have found out
that the lift which she saw earlier was for the jewels to be
transported back to the surface. Rita decided that no matter
what, the thing she had to do now was get out of here and the
only way out was currently that lift. Convincing the guards
would not be an easy task plus it would draw suspicion so she
decided to sneak past them. Just as she was about to get on the
next lift, she heard a loud BANG! She quickly looked at the
source of the commotion which appeared to be the city’s gates
and there stood… Oh…Oh no…!
“MAKE WAAAAY!”
None other than Ellancelot who was now with as much
destruction as possible making her way through the city to the
very centre with Did following her not far behind. Ellancelot
stood up on a barrel and in a loud voice announced:
“People of whatever this place is! Hear ye! I come in peace-!”
before Ellancelot could finish the word, Did coughed rather
loudly nodding at the path of destruction left behind by all the
commotion. By this time, Rita was hitting her head against the
wall and thinking Stupid! Stupid! STUPID! Why did I not foresee
this?! If only they just gave me a bit more time…! Ellancelot
coughed, slightly embarrassed, “Well…Ha ha… Not exactly peace
but… Ahem… Anyways! I am looking for a friend and ally! She is
quite tall, brown hair, has a headband with a massive bow on it,
ragged clothes with some fur… Rings a bell? Anyone? No?”
Ellancelot was now getting either blank looks or death glares
from the people around her; the tension was noticeably rising.
“Well this is awkward…” Ellancelot coughed and stretched her
collar, “Well…We’ll be going then? Cheerio!”
Before Ellancelot could make her way back, the angry mob
started to protest and shout things like Kill the Intruder! and
for some reason even Burn the witch! which made no sense
what-so-ever to Rita. Before Ellancelot and Did were going to be
strictly speaking murdered, Rita sighed and in lightning speed
ran to them, grabbed them and urged them to follow her.
“Rita! My good pal!” Ellancelot sobbed with tears of happiness
as she hugged Rita’s leg which Rita was dragging, trying to get
away.
“We have no time for this! Make haste and let us escape!” Rita
roared. Ellancelot and Did flinched and despite their status
being higher than Rita’s, they nodded and followed with no
further questions. Rita tried to make way as fast as she could
back towards the lift, knocking the guards out in the process
since she had no time to sneak around nor bargain with them and
pushed Ellancelot and Did on it while setting it into motion and
jumping on it herself. As the lift was reaching the surface,
Rita drew out her sword and dagger.
“You better prepare yourselves, I am sure there are more where
these guys came from” Rita motioned at the people at the bottom
trying to figure out the controls. Ellancelot and Did also
prepared their weapons just in case and just as the lift was
about to reach the surface, the people at the bottom figured out
the controls and stopped the lift.
“Those rotten…grr!” Rita had no time for this. She took off
her scarf (which was green, if you did not know) and started to
chant something. The scarf lit up and Rita threw it up as it
expanded and attached itself towards something to support their
weight on the surface.
“We have to climb now!” Rita motioned to follow her as she
climbed up. Ellancelot and Did looked shocked and puzzled at the
same time for a while but shortly after the lift started to
lower, they followed her and have successfully reached the
surface… only to find swords and arrows pointed at them.
“Well well well… What do we have here… You have caused quite a
commotion down there…” the irritating voice belonged to none
other than Glove’s bumbling assistant Pansy, “Arthurs,
honourable Ellancelot and Diddicus, eh? A troublesome group
indeed…”
Rita had her hand near her sword and whispered to her
companions:
“Do not move…yet. When I give you the signal, be ready with
you weapons to attack the side you are facing.”
Rita decided that she could use this situation to her
advantage and get more information out of Pansy.
“So… Since when does the oh almighty Order play in the mud to
find petty stones, huh?” Rita tried to sound as sarcastic as she
could in order to anger Pansy, which she was succeeding.
“P-petty?! You peasant probably cannot tell the difference
between a petty stone and a valuable jewel since you probably
never seen one in your life…” Pansy smirked as Rita glared at
him, “But! It should be none of your concern but wait… Is this
not your precious little land here?”
Rita’s eyes widened as she looked around to find that they
were in the outskirts of the Sixth Realm. Who would have thought
that all the riches they desired were literally right under
their nose! How ironic… Rita thought sadly.
This did not help Rita to understand anything at all and she
had a feeling that there was no point in dragging this on for
any longer. She finally took out her sword and dagger and
shouted her signal of ‘NOW!’ and launched herself at the troops
in front of her just as Did and Ellancelot attacked the side
they were facing. Pansy did not expect this turn of events and
fled in a hurry. Rita did not want him to get away so easily so
she tried to take care of the people attacking her as fast as
she could and ran after the fleeing chancellor. The chancellor
did not give up without a fight and started to throw random
books at Rita as he fled which made Rita wonder where on earth
he kept them. Mere books would not have stopped Rita but these
books turned out to be something else. Just as the chancellor
stopped running in a circle meaning that the books now
surrounded Rita, he turned to face her with a victorious look on
his face.
“Fool, you just stepped right into my trap!” the chancellor
cackled madly as he clicked his fingers and a ray of golden
light started to connect each book together forming a star which
shined bright gold, blinding Rita. Ugh! Wh-what is this?! Rita
felt that she was starting to get weaker very rapidly. Through
the light, she saw that the chancellor was now entering a cab
and leaving. Damn that Pansy! He got away! Rita felt stupid as
to fall into such a trap. What was important now though was to
get out of the shining gold star which was draining her life
energy out of her by every minute. She had no idea as to what
she was supposed to do and soon lost consciousness.
Do not give up…
There was a distant voice which she did not recognise. She
briefly saw a figure of a young girl with red hair and an
elegant blue dress.
If you give up now, all of Glenton will be in jeopardy in the
rule of the Order…
It seemed that the voice belonged to the girl which Rita could
not see clearly. The girl is right… Rita thought I can’t give up
here!
Rita? Rita! Wake up!
Rita heard someone call out to her and she started to feel a
burning sensation on her cheek which felt like it was being
slapped rather hardly.
“RITA, YOU LAZY GIT, WAKE UP!” Ellancelot’s voice broke
through Rita’s delusions finally bringing her back to reality.
As she blinked frantically, she tried to get used to the
surroundings and the bright light. Rita saw two faces over her –
one of the worried Did and the other of the annoyed Ellancelot.
“Gees! You had me worried there for a while!” Ellancelot
scolded. After Rita could finally move around freely, she
received the nagging of a lifetime from Ellancelot for running
off on her own and trying to deal with things which she did not
fully understand. It turned out that the chancellor was not as
harmless as he looked like and was in fact a powerful wizard
specialising with manipulating people and draining power.
Luckily for Rita, Ellancelot was taught about the arts of the
corrupted Order as well as how to dispel them. If Ellancelot had
arrived even a second later, it might have been too late.
As Ellancelot, Did and Rita started to depart, Rita looked
back once again at the mine which was now empty. It seems that
everyone has fled the mine after the Order was driven out. When
the group started to approach the borders of Bournemouthshire,
Rita felt that they were being watched.
“Could we…stop here for a few minutes? I need to check
something out” Rita smiled sheepishly at Ellancelot and Did.
“Call of nature?” Ellancelot asked giggling.
“Yeah yeah, whatever.” Rita rolled her eyes. It was better to
let her companions not be suspicious of her so she walked over
to some rocks from where she thought they were being watched.
Her instincts did not fail her and she found none other than
Malwa behind the rocks. For a few moments, Malwa stared
wide-eyed at Rita since she was surprised but then the stare
turned into a glare.
“So you are a live, huh…” Malwa hissed, she did not want to be
discovered by any more people than Rita already.
“Relax, I’m not some treacherous double agent” Rita brushed
her fingers through her hair casually, “Listen, there is a large
mine East of here; it is full of many riches so you might want
to take a look at it.”
“And how can I be sure that we are not going to be ambushed or
something?” Malwa was suspicious but she could not help but have
a little hope in her old friend.
“Well… You can check it out yourself first and if it’s safe,
you can bring others along” Rita offered, “You can even say you
discovered it all by yourself. I don’t really care.”
Malwa pondered on what Rita said for a while, nodded and
disappeared out of Rita’s sight. Fast as always, Malwa, my old
pal… Rita looked up at the sky holding back tears. She did miss
everyone else but now was a time to be strong and move on. Rita
walked back to Ellancelot and Did who were waiting for her.
“You were gone for quite some time” Ellancelot nudged Did and
winked, “Gone for a big one, eh?”
“Huh? Umm…yeah, sure, whatever.” Rita was not sure what
Ellancelot was talking about since she forgot about the lie she
told earlier. And so the days has ended as the three now tired
adventurers returned to Glenton.
#Post#: 1021--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Risible Adventures of Rita Arthurs (completed; in
editorial process of V2)
DIR By: Rita Arthurs
Date: June 14, 2013, 5:18 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]Chapter 7
Submerging Sapphire[/center]
Back in Glenton, Rita was surprised to find that Ellancelot
was in fact the head of the Ruby Tribe and that she was
impressed how Rita has dealt with the critical situations which
they faced such as dealing with the dragon and stopping the
Order’s plans with the mines meaning that she has passed Ruby’s
trial. What bothered Rita was that although they did rid the
mines of the Order, it was highly likely that they already had
plenty of jewels to spare for the Ritual. Of course since
Ellancelot already knew of the dangers which the Order was
capable of, she made it her responsibility to make sure the
Council of Glenton was also aware of what was to come hence
having the Sapphire tribe being in charge of locating the
Order’s next target and destroying it before they could get
their hands on it and since Rita still hasn’t completed their
trial, she was also appointed to help out.
Elegance, keeping face and manners was something that no
Sapphirean was known to lack. The royal blue of their gem was
the reason why they liked to dress elegantly and look their best
at all times. The Sapphire tribe mainly consisted of scholars
and magicians – something that intrigued Rita since she always
admired the art of magic. Of course Rita was not at all
surprised when Sapphire’s part of Glenton was full of
fairytale-like houses and creatures. The blue could be seen just
about everywhere and all the residents wore either a blue dress
or a blue suit. There were a lot of book stores and libraries
and the only thing Rita could think of at the time was
Pff…Bookworms… as she walked towards the Grand Library. The
Grand Library of course confirmed its name once you were inside
it. Everywhere you looked, you would find many books facing you;
you probably never would have found as many books in the entire
of Glenton let alone Bournemouthshire. After walking for quite
some time, Rita has finally reached the library’s centre where a
familiar figure was waiting.
“So you have finally arrived” the familiar voice which Rita
has heard before belonged to none other than the smiling girl
with red hair and a beautiful and elegant blue dress who was
standing in front of her, “I see you are alive and well.”
“Y-you! From that time in the dream!” Rita pointed at the girl
who merely laughed it off.
“Yes yes, it is I, Marketa Bluet whom you have met briefly not
long ago in your delusions…” Marketa paused, “You were quite
near death, I would say…”
Rita gulped. She did not expect to find out just how close she
was to never waking up and just how deadly the Order can be.
“But never mind that now!” Marketa tried to change the subject
after seeing Rita’s reaction, “We have a greater task ahead of
us!”
Marketa walked over elegantly to a table which had a map of
Bournemouthshire on top. She motioned for Rita to come and join
her as she looked over the map.
“I have heard that the Order are planning to perform some sort
of a Ritual” Marketa started to explain the current situation,
“After a lot of research, I have found that the only one which
resembles that by the description I was provided was the one
which the so called God of Power and War would answer. To be
honest, that is not surprising since that is precisely the God
which the Order worships.”
Marketa paused to make sure that Rita understood everything
she had said.
“If I may ask…” Rita tried to word her feedback carefully
since she wanted to sound quite mature and responsible in front
of Marketa who spoke with such knowledge, “What is the deal with
all these Gods and Goddesses? Why not have a single one to
worship?”
“Ah… You are wondering of the faiths which the people follow…”
Marketa nodded showing that she knew what troubled Rita, “I can
explain to you the theory of the faiths briefly, if you would
like to.”
“If you don’t mind…” Rita wanted to understand more about
Glenton and its residents. Marketa waved her hand as two chairs
floated towards her and landed just behind Rita and Marketa
herself in order for them to rest; it was clear that they would
be here for quite a while.
“It is quite simple really” Marketa began her explanation, “As
you know, throughout many decades, centuries and millennia
different tribes and other groups of people have had a faith on
which they relied; Glenton is no exception. While it was usually
that whole countries and races of people had one certain faith
which they followed, Glenton’s tribes were far too opinionated
and the people were far too different to agree on one faith
which the whole village would follow so each tribe has decided
on a God or Goddess which they would worship which best suited
their tribe’s purpose. To be exact, these are the known faiths
followed by Glenton’s tribe.”
Marketa has written something on a scroll of paper and passed
it for Rita to read:
The following list is written in the order of ‘Tribe ~ Faith ~
Reason/How it relates to the tribe’
Amber ~ Sun God ~ Very honourable. Related to life and light
Amethyst ~ Goddess of Earth/‘Mother Nature’ ~ Very creative
individuals. Also for hunting
Ruby ~ Fire God ~ Very determined and energetic
Sapphire ~ Aqua God ~ Wisdom. Water is known to be quite calm
and beautiful which defines the tribe
Topaz ~ Moon Goddess ~ Related to night and stealth
After Rita has read the contents of the scroll, she put it
back on the table and faced Marketa to show that she had her
full attention once again.
“I see you are done reading…” Marketa paused, “Of course not
everyone in their tribe agrees to this but there’s bound to be
disagreements with things like this. People are different and
you cannot always put everyone in one single bunch and define
them; it is impossible. But that aside, does that answer your
question?”
“Yes. Yes it does…” Rita said, in deep thought. She did not
know that faiths could represent people to such an extent
although she did see their point. The outskirts themselves
believed in and worshipped the God of Luck since they needed all
the luck they could get with their lifestyle. Another question
which bugged Rita also formed in her head and she decided to
clear that up, “I have another question…”
“Speak.” Marketa said while getting up from her seat and
moving towards some books piled one on top of the other lying
near some shelves. Someone who read them probably left them
behind without tidying them up and Rita could have sworn she
heard Marketa say under her breath the words of That child… As
messy as always…
“What is magic?” Marketa paused in the middle of fetching the
books as she heard Rita’s question and looked at her as if she
has asked the strangest question she has ever heard, “I-I mean…
Even I, someone without training, could use it freely once I was
taught the chants of it. It made me curious whether everyone was
capable of it…”
“I see…” Marketa sighed as she carried on with her task of
putting away the books. She moved hastily yet elegantly as she
put each book back on its shelf and paused as she tried to
assemble her answer. She finally sighed and put the last book in
its rightful place, “That would depend on what you believe it
is.”
Rita did not expect that kind of answer so she asked, “What do
you mean?”
“You are no fool, I can see that.” Marketa sat back down on
her chair, “What is magic? Magic is merely the miracles which we
cannot explain; it is something we use to define the things that
we cannot define. If I asked you where this chair came from and
how it was made, would you be able to answer that?”
“Of course, it is made of wood so it came from a forest!” Rita
answered, Marketa nodded in approval.
“It is indeed but what if I asked where we all came from. How
did it all start? Did God create all this? If so, which one?
Which is the right faith to follow?” Marketa stopped herself,
“Ahem…Excuse me… The point is, not everything is there to be
known and defined and magic is one of those things. Each person
has their own outlook on things like faith and they have their
own way of answering so… what is yours?”
Rita paused for a second to ponder on what Marketa has said;
she was a wise woman indeed. Finally Rita came to a conclusion
and answered, “To me… it seems that magic is the strong will of
one’s spirit which has no shape or form. If we truly desire
something, some might regard that magic is something that drives
us forward – our willpower. We call it miracles and something
that is usually impossible to happen but that is only because we
put a limit to what we can do. In order to carry out magic, you
must think outside the little box in order to let our potential
to be let out and perform things we regard as miracles.”
Marketa smiled warmly at Rita, “And there you have your
answer… Of course not everyone will agree but then again, we are
all individuals and we see things in our own way.”
Rita was amazed by Marketa’s influence on others. In a mere
hour, she widened Rita’s outlook on life with such ease! This
made Rita respect Marketa.
Before the two could talk about anything else, the two have
heard some disturbance not far back. It sounded as if some books
fell and a small screech. As the two rushed to the source of
disturbance, Rita could not help but notice how Marketa seemed
to rather float with her dress rather than run. When the two
reached the source of disruption, they found it was none other
than a familiar Amethystine girl Kiera. She seemed to have
fallen of a ladder while carrying some books which were now
scattered on the floor all around her as she rubbed her head
where it seemed to hit the ladder as she also fell off.
“Well what do you expect, it’s the Pearson brat, huh” Rita
said disapprovingly in a cold tone as she examined all the books
which Marketa had to put away, “You were always the odd one out,
eh?”
“Oh pipe down, Arthurs! I bet you can’t even read!” Kiera shot
back at Rita, angering her and forcing her to withdraw her sword
which started to glow at its master’s touch. At that moment, the
room went completely silent as the stunned Kiera and Marketa
looked at the sword.
“Y-you! W-where did you get this?!” Kiera jumped up and looked
at the sword as if it was some precious jewel (or in her case, a
brand new book about spies).
“This artefact! It cannot be!” Marketa was amazed and
fascinated at the same time, “May I?”
“Uh…sure?” Rita passed the sword to Marketa. As soon as the
sword was in Marketa’s hands, it stopped glowing which seemed to
fascinate her even more.
“Amazing…it only recognises you as its true master and unlocks
its wondrous abilities…” Marketa could barely breathe as she
brought the sword back to the table. Kiera groaned and picked up
the books which she dropped.
“How did someone like you get your hands on something like
that?” Kiera said in a very sarcastic manner something that Rita
detected as…jealousy?!
“I…found it…” Rita made up a lie quick.
“Lies, that kind of sword would not be just lying around…did
you steal it from somewhere, robber girl?” Kiera now seemed
suspicious of Rita.
“Well I–” Rita was interrupted by Marketa calling both her and
Kiera over to where she was. Kiera groaned again and with a pile
of books in her hands now, she attempted the terrifying journey
to the table which Rita watched with amusement. Kiera collided
with a book shelf or two quite a few times meaning that she had
to pick up her books; the problem was that she could not see
where she was going with all the books piled up in her hands!
After Rita thought that she received enough entertainment for
the day, she came up to Kiera, still giggling a little bit.
“Need any help?” Rita offered her hands but Kiera only glared
at her and carried on until she finally reached the table where
Marketa was now leaning over the sword and examining it more
closely with some spectacles.
“Marvellous…Fascinating…” Marketa kept chanting as she looked
over the sword.
Rita and Kiera who has put the books on the table came to stand
beside Marketa.
“What is this sword anyway?” Rita broke the silence and found
both Marketa and Kiera staring at her in disbelief.
“Y-you don’t even-?!” Kiera nearly choked on Rita’s question.
“Child! Do you not know what this sword is?!” Marketa was just
as shocked as Kiera.
“Well…This weirdo from the lake gave it to me…She called it
Excalibur or something…” Rita was deep in thought, remembering
the events which occurred by the lake. Kiera and Marketa were
speechless for a while and exchanged a few glances between them
as if they were unsure whether to tell Rita something or not.
“Well…” Kiera looked at Marketa for support.
“This sword is indeed the legendary sword by the name of
Excalibur” Marketa nodded, “If it was given to you by the lake,
it was likely by the Lady of the Lake… She has a weird habit to
call herself NikiLOL… But why you…”
Rita was unsure whether she was insulted or impressed by the
last line.
“Is this really important? I thought we were supposed to
discuss what we were going to do next against the Order!” Rita
pouted and tried to change the subject. Marketa blinked a few
times as if she was back in reality, shook her head and handed
Rita her sword back.
“You are right… This is no time to be daydreaming…” Marketa
dragged the map closer towards her on the table. Kiera, however,
seemed to not mind staying in the dream world and even fell
asleep on the table as Marketa explained everything on the map.
Rita listened closely… unlike someone she thought while once in
a while shooting death glares at Kiera in case she was awake. As
Marketa has finished her briefing and explaining where each and
every tree and bush was located, she pointed at a lake North
East of Glenton, “Here is where the Order shall supposedly
strike next. It is the Lake of the Lady who used to hold the
very sword you now possess… Ahem… What we must discover is why
exactly that place would be perfect for their so called ‘Ritual’
and how we can stop them.”
“Sooo… You’re saying it’s just another fieldtrip?” Rita
shortened Marketa’s explanation.
“…Well…in some aspects…yes” Marketa shuffled her feet
uncomfortably, “We have to depart immediately and we must bring
the best scholars and wizards among the Sapphire tribe-”
“Sorry to interrupt but why do we need so many nerds in one
place?” Rita interrupted Marketa.
“N-nerds?!” Marketa was taken aback by Rita’s description of
her fellow Sapphireans, “We are not mere nerds! We…! Have a life
too… to some degree…”
“Riiiight” Rita rolled her eyes, “The question remains
unanswered though.”
“Is it not obvious? We shall scan the area as well as the lake
itself” Marketa said and looked at Rita as if this was the most
basic thing in the world which she should have grasped by now.
“What? Sorry to break it to you but I don’t really want to
play in the water and mud…But you guys can have all the fun you
want.” Rita raised her hands in defence.
“No, child! We will not get wet precisely because of the
scholars and wizards! They should know a spell or two which
should let us breathe under water and keep us dry at the same
time.” Marketa said proudly.
“How would that work?” Rita tilted her head, “But then again,
who am I to question what the mighty nerds can do. Alright, when
do we depart?”
“At dusk.” Marketa said firmly.
“Dusk?!” Rita looked out a window which was at the very top of
the library, “But it’s already getting dark!”
“Then we must leave now. The sooner the better; you never know
how much time we have to spare before the Order gets their hands
on whatever it is they want there.” Marketa folded away the map
and walked out the library, expecting Rita to follow her. Rita
quickly ran after Marketa in order to catch up to her, leaving
the still sleeping Kiera leaning on the table.
The night seemed to invade fast as Rita and some other
Sapphireans lead by Marketa were walking through the forest. The
forest at night seemed rather mysterious yet somehow magnificent
at the same time. There were some fireflies lighting up the
night here and there which made the forest seem more alive and
less scary. Rita looked up at the sky to find that the moon was
in its last quarter position meaning that they did not have much
time before the Order was going to start to take action. As they
were nearing the lake, Marketa stopped everyone and gave the
instructions to everyone who travelled with them. The
Sapphireans nodded and took their positions and started to
chant. Marketa motioned for Rita to follow her towards the lake.
As they approached the lake, Marketa herself started to chant
something. It went on like this for quite a while… About three
or four hours that is. Rita who was by now bored out of her mind
and sitting on the shore was startled when there was sudden
light surrounding all of the Sapphireans and forming a shining
blue dome covering the entire lake. Marketa nodded and awoke
from her trance.
“It is just as we suspected – we must go under water.” Marketa
walked towards Rita.
“Great… You sure took your time!” Rita made her discomfort and
annoyance clear.
“Great things take time now rise, child!” Marketa said before
she once again started chanting something. What’s the point of
me getting up if you’re going to sleep talk for more hours? Rita
thought but nonetheless she stood up on her feet. Before she
could take a step anywhere further, a warm blue light surrounded
her entire body from head to toe; the same seemed to occur with
Marketa who has now opened her eyes.
“We can now submerge into the lake” Marketa stated as she
started to enter the water. Rita did not bother questioning her
and just followed her close behind while closing her eyes.
Even though her eyes were closed and she now felt that she was
underwater, Rita did not feel any different and she still
breathed normally. She opened one of her eyes to take a peek at
her surroundings but she soon gasped and opened both of her eyes
as she took in the scenery. They were completely surrounded by
water. The lake bed seemed to stretch far and wide into every
direction she could see. There were many rocks though with some
fish swirling around them. The moonlight rays of light shone
brightly through the lake making it seem very beautiful
underwater.
#Post#: 1022--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Risible Adventures of Rita Arthurs (completed; in
editorial process of V2)
DIR By: Rita Arthurs
Date: June 14, 2013, 5:18 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
After a while, Rita discovered that they were approaching
something – a fountain. The fountain was made of beautiful
marble which was blue in some places and even though they were
underwater already, there was still some water there which stood
out among the rest by shining slightly.
“Ah…The Fountain of Wisdom…” Marketa said omnisciently as she
reached to touch the water but stopping her hand in mid ai-err…
water not daring to touch the sacred fountain. After her hand
shook, she clenched it into a fist and turned to Rita, “We must
destroy it.”
It was hard for Marketa to say those words since the fountain
seemed to be very important to her.
“Are you sure?” Rita asked, “This fountain thing sounds pretty
important…”
“It… was a gift from the Aqua God, by our legends…” Marketa
lowered her head, “It gives absolute knowledge and wisdom to the
one who drinks from it but…since it is a sacred gift, no one is
allowed to drink from it and so it was placed in this lake many
years ago…”
“Then why destroy it if it’s so precious and sacred?” Rita
still did not see Marketa’s logic.
“Because we can’t let the Order obtain any knowledge nor water
from it, that’s why! The water inside is holy! Rings a bell?”
Marketa suddenly erupted, something that Rita has not seen
before. She suddenly understood what Marketa was talking about –
the holy water was a requirement for the Order’s so called
Ritual! As Rita was realising this, Marketa wasted no time and
turned towards the fountain. While her hands were still shaking,
she lifted them and started to chant forcing a blue orb to start
growing within her hands. As Marketa was about to destroy the
fountain forever, Rita shouted.
“Wait!” Rita jumped in Marketa’s way, with her sword withdrawn
but it was too late; Marketa could not stop her attack and the
blue orb shot right at Rita. Luckily, the sword deflected the
attack which flew into many rocks to the right which started to
crumble.
“Child! What have you done?!” Marketa exclaimed in horror as
the rocks started to fall down on them. Before they would be
buried alive, Marketa and Rita made a run for it. Getting to a
safe distance, they turned around to find that the fountain was
now nowhere to be seen since the rocks completely buried it.
Marketa spun around to face Rita, she was furious.
“Do you have any idea in what danger you put yourself in?! And
not only that but you could have killed us both!” Rita never
seen Marketa so furious…then again she only knew her for a day.
“But if you destroyed that fountain, wouldn’t that oh I don’t
know…called upon your God’s wrath or something?” Marketa froze
as she heard Rita’s words, “Besides, no one is getting to it
with those rocks there, I’m sure!”
Marketa considered what Rita has said for a while and finally
nodded in approval. She turned away from Rita and started to
walk forwards, Rita of course followed her. After quite a while
of walking, Rita began to wonder whether they have been going
around in circles and after seeing the same strangely shaped
rock for about the tenth time, Rita thought Yep…We’re definitely
lost… Just as Rita was about to ask Marketa what they were going
to do, they reached something unexpected – an underwater
castle-like coral. W-wha? A coral? But this is a lake! Rita
could not believe her eyes. She looked over at Marketa for
support but she only stood there with her lips tightly pressed
together as if she was debating with herself about something.
She suddenly turned to face Rita.
“Alright…I admit that I do not know the geography of this lake
very well…” Marketa finally admitted, turning a bit red since it
was an embarrassment for a person like her to get lost, “But
maybe we can ask for some directions…”
“Can’t we just swim up?” Rita tilted her head slightly and
pointed up.
“…Well… I think asking is best!” Marketa quickly started to
walk towards the coral castle. Rita had a hunch that Marketa
could not swim very well… After they have reached the coral,
Marketa looked around and decided to just shout out. There was
no answer for a while…at first… but then a figure jumped down
from one of the windows… if they can even be called that. It was
a familiar figure to Rita – NikiLOL.
“That’s rare! I have some visitors in here!” NikiLOL started
to jump up and down in excitement. She then noticed Rita and
rushed over to her, “Ah! Young Arthur! How is your training
going? Did you need anything?”
“My name is not Arthur” Rita said through gritted teeth.
“Nonsense, my boy! And I am sure you are handling that sword
pretty well! You’ll grow into a fine young man who can protect
these lands!” NikiLOL seemed not to listen to a word Rita was
saying. Marketa let out a small giggle since the Lady of the
Lake confused Rita with a boy and unless 11-year-old boys those
days had long hair and plaited hair…her clothes were pretty
neutral.
“Ahem… If we may ask… Could you please show us the way out of
here? We’re a bit lost you see…” Marketa was still giggling a
little bit which NikiLOL of course did not notice.
“Certainly! But how did you even get here? Have humans already
evolved to a point where they can breathe and walk freely under
water?” NikiLOL had a puzzled expression on her face but Marketa
merely laughed it off. NikiLOL started to walk in a direction
which was probably the way out.
“No no, nothing like that yet…” Marketa followed NikiLOL,
quite amused. While Marketa and NikiLOL were having their own
conversation about how ‘young lad Arthur’s’ training was going,
Rita followed behind them trying to stare a hole through them.
Do I really look like a boy to you, you god damn fish head?!
Rita could not hold back her anger.
After quite some time of Rita plotting revenge or the like,
she bumped into Marketa and NikiLOL who have now stopped.
“And here we are young Arthur and his lady friend!” NikiLOL
pointed to where lake bed started to rise, it was the shore.
After Marketa thanked NikiLOL and started to exit the water,
NikiLOL before leaving nudged Rita teasingly, “Aaand what kind
of a relationship do you two have? Were you lost on your
honeymoon or something?”
Rita left to the shore with answering NikiLOL’s question – a
massive rock which was now lying at the lake bed, split in half
where it hit NikiLOL’s head rather hard.
“Gees…it’s not like I asked for details…” NikiLOL sulked and
started her journey back.
Back at the shore, Marketa has already gathered everyone and
they were ready to depart. On their way back to Glenton, Rita
was informed that she did rather well by not letting Marketa
destroy the fountain and regretting it later meaning that she
has passed Sapphire’s trial. What awaited Rita next back at
Glenton though was something she could never have predicted…
#Post#: 1023--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Risible Adventures of Rita Arthurs (completed; in
editorial process of V2)
DIR By: Rita Arthurs
Date: June 14, 2013, 5:20 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]Chapter 8
Delusions or Dreams?[/center]
As soon as Marketa, Rita and the rest of the ‘nerds’, as Rita
would call them, entered the gates of Glenton – they noticed
that the atmosphere in the air was different. Something was off.
As they walked through the streets towards the Square, Rita
noticed that there was not a single soul to be seen outside. The
worse though was yet to be seen – the square was full of people
who were on the ground and they seemed lifeless. Marketa rushed
over to some people to check their pulse and sighed in relief.
She returned to Rita and the others.
“They are merely sleeping,” Marketa explained to the rest
“Are you telling me that everyone just gathered at the square
and had a massive sleepover?” Rita pointed out at hundreds of
people who were from different tribes lying all over the place.
“No, there is some powerful magic in the air…” Marketa said,
annoyed, “If you could just listen to all I have to say and then
ask questions…”
“Bah, all the yapping won’t help!” Rita waved Marketa off with
her hand, “We need to get to action and do something.”
Marketa gritted her teeth but nodded. She instructed for all
of the Sapphirites to check everyone around the village while
asked Rita to follow her somewhere. After a while of walking,
Rita recognised the streets of the Amethyst tribe…well mostly
the tower but that’s beside the point… As they reached the
tower, a figure jumped out of the tower leaving Rita with her
eyes wide. T-that tower must be a few meters high! And yet that
person just jumped out! Looking closer at the figure, it was
none other than the troublesome Pearson ‘brat’.
“Oh? You guys back so soon?” Kiera recognised the two visitors
and seemed to relax a little.
“Were you expecting someone else?” Marketa asked while Kiera
merely laughed it off.
“Heavens no! I’m actually glad to see some familiar faces…with
open eyes!” Kiera said with relief but then she noticed Rita and
stuck her tongue out.
“What is going on here?” Marketa ignored Kiera’s and Rita’s
childish battle of sticking their tongue out, “What happened
while we were gone?”
“Oh, y’know. The usual – the Order” Kiera shrugged as if it
did not concert or trouble her very much. Marketa seemed to
freeze on the spot… or she was just in deep thought – it was
hard to tell with her blank expression.
“And how come you are not affected?” Rita mouthed, clearly
disappointed.
“I’m an Amethystine!” Kiera stuck her chest out proudly, “We
are dreamers so of course I would not get affected by such a
poor sleeping spell!”
“Yeaaah…Why don’t you say that to the rest of your Amethystine
hippies” Rita pointed out the emptiness of the streets, clearly
implying that there were no other Amethystines around.
“Quiet, you!” Kiera snapped at Rita.
“Enough! This is not the time for your childish squabbles!”
Marketa suddenly raised her voice, silencing the two kids.
Marketa declared that she had to discuss something with Kiera
and told Rita to just hang around somewhere for now.
Rita had nothing better to do so she started to walk around
the streets. It seemed like a ghost town than the lively village
which she was used to seeing every morning. Its ironic how she
used to hate the noise and overcrowding of so many people and
how now it suddenly seemed too quiet. Rita was starting to feel
discomfort so she kicked a pebble for a change.
“Huh?” Rita stopped as she came across many puddles, “Why is
there water here? It did not seem like it rained… And why only
in this part of the village…?”
This part of the village was in fact in the North-East and
closest to the village’s walls. As Rita came closer to the
walls, she noticed that something seemed off about them. She
tried to touch the walls but as she expected – her hand went
right through the walls. An illusion… Rita was on guard now; it
was definitely the work of the Order. She readied herself with
her sword withdrawn and walked straight through the wall only to
find darkness and think fog. The only light which could be seen
was from Rita’s sword and the outside from where she just
entered. Rita looked around, trying to find any clue as to where
she was – this was too suspicious. Before she could take a step
forward, a familiar voice called out to her.
“Stop!”
Rita froze where she was.
“Do not take even one step forward!”
Rita was already doing that anyway.
“Now…Slowly go back from where you came from…”
Rita obeyed the voice and stepped back outside to Glenton.
Someone grabbed her arm immediately and dragged her away from
the wall.
“Do you ever question where you are going before entering
something?!” Marketa started to shake Rita who seemed in a daze,
“Do you have any idea what that place was?!”
She did not even want to know since Rita has never felt so
cold in her life before she entered that place.
“What…” Rita gulped, already knowing the answer to her
question, “What was that place?”
“That was the Otherworld, a place where the diseased and
fallen go” Marketa looked worried as she checked if Rita was
alright.
“What was it doing in such a place?” Rita was finally starting
to feel her fingers again.
“I would have thought that it was the Order but… they do not
practice the Dark Arts… It seems more of a work of a
necromancer…” Marketa finally sighed in relief after seeing
colour come back to Rita’s face, “You had me worried there… You
looked like a corpse…”
“That’s probably how she would look with some make up on”
Kiera stepped out of the shadows, “What’s more worrying is why
there is the portal of death right at our doorstep.”
“Have the Otherworld creatures thought there was a mass murder
and expected the souls of all the Glenton villagers to be
drained there?” Marketa started to pace. After a while she
stopped and came towards the portal. She started to chant and
strange blue symbols started to appear on the wall, “I have
locked this gate for now since I do not have enough power to
close it. We would need the same person who opened it to do
that… This is quite troublesome…”
“Well this can wait since it’s sealed away anyway” Kiera
shrugged as if it was no big deal, “What we need to do now is
get this town lively again since it’s too boring.”
“Kiera!” Marketa looked displeased.
“Okay! Okay! And so that everyone can be safe and sound yada
yada” Kiera rolled her eyes but then smirked, “The point is – we
have to go explore a new little place.”
Rita did not like the sound of that, “What kind of place?”
Kiera grinned widely and mischievously, “Why! The Dream Land
of course!”
Has she finally lost it? Rita wondered as she stared at Kiera
as if she was a complete lunatic. Before Kiera could give an
even worse impression, Marketa stepped in to protect what was
left of Kiera’s dignity as a sane person.
“Since Amethystines are known to be the ‘dreamers’, they also
hold a key to another world – one known as the Dream Land”
Marketa explained to Rita. Such places actually exist? Rita was
amazed yet still a bit suspicious.
“Oh boy! I haven’t been there for a while!” Kiera said,
clearly excited.
“Oh really? I thought you were exploring it while you were in
the library the other day” Rita smirked and leaned in a menacing
manner.
“At least I can read unlike some” Kiera returned Rita’s smirk
and folded her arms.
“At least I can write” Rita also folded her arms and smirked
wider.
“H-how did you-?! I-I mean, pff. Who said I couldn’t?” Kiera
laughed nervously with her hand awkwardly scratching her head.
“Who said I was talking about you?” Rita was enjoying this,
“Unless it is true.”
Kiera gritted her teeth but then relaxed and merely laughed it
off awkwardly, “Pff, n-not me. Ha ha… Ha ha ha…”
An awkward silence fell upon the three girls while the wind
started to get stronger. Glenton had not a single sign of life
in it which bothered Marketa a lot. Before the situation could
get any worse, Marketa broke the silence.
“We should…prepare to depart at dawn…” and with those words
Marketa started to return to her only haven – the library.
Before Kiera exchanged one final glare with Rita, she started to
return to her tower leaving Rita on the empty streets of the
lifeless village. Rita had neither a place to go to nor the
desire to do so and so she just… stood there in silence,
watching the sun set behind the walls of Glenton. Just before
the sun was about to disappear completely from her sight, Rita
decided that it was no time to space out and that she needed to
find a place to stay at for the night. As the moon shone
brightly, Rita wondered just how much time they had before the
full moon and whether they were going to make it in time to stop
the Order. In theory, they had stopped them from reaching the
Fountain of Wisdom but then why would they attack the village?
Something seemed off… And very wrong and Rita did not like it.
At midnight, Rita was starting to get sleepy as she lay on the
roof of one of Glenton’s houses which had a great view of the
plateau and various paths leading to all sorts of places. She
then remembered how not too long ago she was still with her
friends and comrades, cheerfully playing by the fire and
laughing to their heart’s content. Its funny how in such a short
amount of time your whole life could turn completely upside down
and you end up with no home to go back to, no friends to help
and no fire to warm you up for the night. Would you look at me…
Being depressed and all that…Ugh, disgusting… Rita was disgusted
by her own behaviour so she stood up and started to run across
the roofs of the houses. She ran until she noticed a training
battle ground which was decorated by symbols of the sun. This
might be a good opportunity to train… Rita though. She usually
suffered long sleepless nights even when she was back in the
outskirts and could nearly never fall asleep unless she was
extremely tired but even in some cases when she was tired, she
still could not get a blink of sleep. Also, when she did sleep,
she could never remember her dreams and the very rare ones which
she did remember were strange dreams with many mazes or
nightmares where she was always left alone while all she knew
and loved turned onto her and tried to eradicate her.
Rita shook her head as if trying to shake her memories and
pointless thoughts out and breathed a deep sigh before daring to
walk into the massive training grounds. All of the equipment and
targets were set out and ready so Rita wasted no time and
started to train herself. After hours and hours of training, she
finally felt at ease and more relaxed (well that is if you
overlook the fact that she was quite tired). It was at times
like these when Rita’s stamina came to use – even if she had
trained to her maximum potential, she regained her energy very
fast and could carry on training. As the sun started to rise,
Rita decided that it was about time that she should stop and
wiped away the sweat on her face with a what seemed clean towel
which was likely used by other people training here. After that,
she left the training grounds and started to head towards the
square. There was no actual meeting point mentioned but Rita
could not think of any other place to meet except…the gate! Rita
quickly changed course and sure enough, after a while, Marketa
and Kiera showed up at the gate.
“We thought you might be here” Kiera huffed, she was probably
running before this.
“Child, although it is a different land, we cannot reach there
on foot…” Marketa also seemed a bit exhausted.
“Damn you, Arthurs!” Kiera finally snapped and dramatically
threw her bow on the ground, “Why must we run around all of the
village in order to look for the likes of… well you?!”
Rita rolled her eyes and turned her attention to Marketa, “I
was not sure where to meet and this seemed like a decent place.”
“Yes… yes…” Marketa finally took in a big breath of air before
recomposing herself, “I apologise for not stating the meeting
place clearly… Now, please follow us.”
Marketa dragged the still hysterical Kiera behind towards the
Amethystine tower, with Rita following close behind. After a
while of climbing, they have finally reached the top of the
tower. Once in the spacious room with many pillows which Rita
has seen before, Marketa has finally remembered about and let go
of the now half unconscious Kiera who was dragged up the stairs.
Marketa apologised and went over to get a familiar lamp and
summoning the familiar purple elephant.
“Yes, my lady?” the elephant looked up at Marketa expecting a
wish.
“I would like you to open the gate to you know where” Marketa
said firmly and the elephant nodded. Magna then started to chant
something and after a while, a strange hole started to appear
and grow – a portal.
“You have now 1 wish left and once again there absolutely may
not be any extensions of the wishes what-so-eve-” Magna was very
close to finishing it’s sentence when Kiera cheerfully raised
her hand and started to jump up and down.
“I WISH FOR 10 MORE WISHEEES!” Kiera cried out loudly.
“Where’s RSPCA when you need it…” Magna muttered and grumbled
some more before disappearing once again. Kiera grinned
victoriously while holding up a ‘V’ for victory sign with her
hands. Marketa shook her head and looked at the now opened
portal before finally stepping though it. Kiera started to
follow her and before stepping in, she turned to Rita and said:
“Although I don’t like you very much…”
“I figured.” Rita said sarcastically.
“Be on your guard and do not go off the path” Kiera looked
serious for once. Path? What path? but before Rita could ask
that question, Kiera has already disappeared into the portal.
Rita shrugged and followed her into an eternal abyss.
When Rita could start to see again, she noticed that although
there was also darkness around her, she could still see herself
standing on a what seemed a pathway made of purple clouds. Not
far off, she could see Marketa and Kiera so she ran up to them.
“It is just as I feared…” Marketa was gravely serious.
“No…” Kiera looked around in horror, “Why is it like…this?”
Rita could not understand what the two were talking about and
so she kept looking around like a lost child at a market place
to see if she could spot something she missed.
“The Order…” Marketa gritted her teeth as she spit out the
name with disgust, “They have poisoned the sacred lands of
dreams.”
“They shall pay” Kiera had a cold look in her eyes which Rita
never saw even though Kiera pretty much could not stand Rita let
alone her presence. The two girls blinded with rage have started
to march forwards, wherever that led to meaning that Rita had to
sprint in order to keep up with their pace.
“H-hey!” Rita panted as she tried to keep up with the two, “I
know I may be an outsider and it may not be my business but… I
don’t understand anything that is going on right now!”
Kiera and Marketa rapidly stopped as they heard Rita’s words
while Rita has now ran into them and stepped back rubbing her
nose. The two turned to face her as if they had just realised
her presence.
“Arthurs? What?” Kiera seemed to start coming out of a daze
and grabbed her forehead.
“This… they are trying to trick us…” Marketa gasped. Who would
have thought that as soon as they have entered the Realm of
Dreams, they would be affected by the poison which was
corrupting the Dream Land.
“Okay…” after Marketa was finally thinking straight, she began
to explain, “What we have to do is find the root of this evil
and destroy it but beware! The Dream Land is not just named for
the sake of naming it…” she coughed, “UnlikeGlenton” and coughed
once again before carrying on, “What that means is that this
place can play mind tricks on you so do not trust everything you
see, hear, touch or smell.”
“What about taste?” Rita tried to joke.
“No tasting” but Marketa took her seriously.
Before Rita could find a witty comment for that, Marketa
started to lead the way once again. While walking, there were
still some things which Rita asked about.
“So how exactly are we going to find this spawn of evil?”
“Source. Source, not spawn” Marketa corrected her while Kiera
merely snorted at Rita’s misuse of vernacular.
“I…knew that…” Rita looked away, a bit embarrassed. This
happened to her frequently.
“The place which has the highest concentration of darkness and
has the heaviest aura in the air” Marketa said, not looking back
at Rita. Great…and how exactly would we do THAT? Rita breathed
out a frustrated sigh. A long time has passed but there still
seemed no sign of the pathway’s end.
“Are we lost by any chance?” Rita suddenly voiced out her
thoughts. Marketa turned to look at Rita and stopped. After a
while, she finally spoke.
“No… I think this might be just another illusion…” as Marketa
said that, the fog began to thicken to the point that Rita could
not see anything around her.
“Marketa?! Pearson?!” Rita called out but there was no reply.
She tried to walk forward but she felt as if she was blind in
darkness. She kept walking forwards until when she stepped
forward, she could not feel anything under her foot. After
realising that she must have walked off the path and was about
to fall, she tried her best to get back on the path but it was
too late and she was already falling into the dark abyss of the
Dream Land.
#Post#: 1024--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Risible Adventures of Rita Arthurs (completed; in
editorial process of V2)
DIR By: Rita Arthurs
Date: June 14, 2013, 5:22 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]Chapter 9
Trials and Tribulations[/center]
Am I…dead? was the first thing Rita thought. She could not
hear, see, smell, taste nor feel anything at all. Everything was
black and empty; it seemed like an eternal abyss. Where am I?
Why am I here? Rita kept thinking but then she remembered that
she accidentally walked off the path and fell into this void.
She should have listened to Marketa and been more careful but
then again, the fog was so thick that it was hard to even see
herself. There’s no time to keep thinking this way Rita thought
firmly …Then again… It’s not like I have to hurry somewhere…
Right now I have all the time in the world…
It may have been minutes, hours or even days but eventually
Rita started to feel that the numbness was wearing off and she
could move again. It was a while until she could open her eyes
but still see nothing since it was pitch black. She tried to
feel around her and it seemed like she was on some hard ground,
very similar to bricks but she was unsure. She tried to reach
for her sword which was no longer there. As she started to feel
about the ground, she saw a light in a distance and started to
crawl towards it until she could finally see herself full of
cuts and bruises and a hovering small blue crystal. As she tried
to reach it with her hand, the crystal slipped away and hovered
a bit further. Eventually, it led her to a lying sword – her
sword. As soon as Rita grabbed her sword which started to glow,
the crystal shattered and formed the Sapphire tribe’s crest
before completely fading away.
“Thank you… Marketa…” Rita muttered as she now started to look
around with her glowing sword. Nothing could be seen around,
there was darkness everywhere no matter how much or how hard
Rita searched around. ‘This place can play mind tricks on you so
do not trust everything you see, hear, touch or smell’ was the
first thing that came to Rita’s mind. The last time Marketa
figured that there was something wrong, she said that the fog
was an illusion but the fog only thickened meaning… it was not
the right answer? What else could the fog have been though…?
“Ah!” Rita suddenly realised, “They were the clouds
themselves… We merely walked deeper into the path made of them…”
The area around Rita seemed to brighten and she could see
something ahead of her which looked like…
“A jungle?!” Rita has never been to one in her life but she
has heard of stories and seen pictures of the tropical forest
but the only question was, “Why is there a jungle in the middle
of nowhere…?”
As Rita said those words, the light began to drain from the
surroundings and realising that she should not say out pointless
things unless she wanted to die, Rita ran for her life through
the jungle where the light still remained. This carried on for a
while until she noticed what looked like a temple into which ran
into and closed the gates behind her. It seemed that the light
did not drain from there so she must have been in the right
place. Rita looked around the temple only to find that this was
most likely just ruins of a temple since the walls seemed weary
and the rocks were mostly eroded by the vines growing around
them. She carried on walking forward, with her sword right in
front of her just in case. The temple ruins seemed like a maze
of shadows since the walls could be barely seen as it only got
darker and darker. Before it got completely dark, Rita thought
she heard a sound as if someone has tripped over a small pebble
which rolled beside her foot. Looking up, Rita saw a pair of
large red glowing blood-thirsty eyes of some creature which she
could not see. Before she had any time to think things through,
Rita made a run for her life not even sure where she was going.
The creature was behind her, not falling behind. Rita randomly
guessed which passages to take as she slid left or right, not
looking back. Marketa’s voice could be once again heard clear in
her head: ‘do not trust everything you see’. Just as Rita
remembered it, she stopped right in the middle of turning left.
She turned to face the so called ‘beast’ which was chasing her.
As the red eyes approached her, she could now see that they
turned white and small and a small bat flew past her.
“This place…ridiculous…” Rita shook her head as the light came
back into the ruins and Rita carried on to make her way through
the temple ruins. As she turned at yet another corner, she saw a
large what looked like an altar made of stone right in the
middle surrounded by twelve stone pillars shaped like animals.
There seemed to be something on top of the pillar but before
Rita could reach it, she heard a large roar which she has heard
before – one resembling of a dragon – as the ground shook with
the rest of the pillars and ceiling. Rita quickly hid behind one
of the pillars, looking around and not daring to approach the
altar. There seemed to be no sight of the drake so Rita tried to
approach the altar once again before crawling back behind the
pillar as she heard the beast’s cry, this time louder and closer
as the surrounding shook even harder. Rita closed her eyes and
gathered all her courage before jumping up on her feet and
starting to run towards the altar.
“Do not trust everything you hear… Do not trust anything you
hear…” Rita kept repeating Marketa’s words to herself as the
growl became so loud that it was unbearable and Rita thought
that she was going to go deaf. Just before she could reach the
altar, the noise stopped. Whether Rita has gone deaf or the
illusion finally stopped was unknown but there lied a greater
problem ahead of her – the altar seemed to have stretched
further away from her. As she ran, it felt like the distance was
only becoming greater. Before Rita could get any further, a
large boulder from above fell right on top of her, knocking her
off her feet.
“Ugh…” Rita moaned as she opened her eyes to see that her body
was being crushed by the boulder. Rita could feel the pain yet
not feel it at the same time as her body went numb. Where did a
boulder come from anyway?
‘Do not trust everything you see, hear or touch’ … Touch! Rita
thought That’s it! It’s the same as feel so…
As soon as Rita tried to lift her hand up, she found herself
standing near the altar with no boulder crushing her body. Right
before Rita was about to start stepping on the altar’s steps,
she heard her stomach grumble, she was quite hungry. Suddenly, a
smell of a nice tasty roast could be detected as Rita’s mouth
started to water. The smell seemed to come from another passage
behind the altar to which Rita was now approaching.
Yes…Yes… Approach the passage, child… Give in to your
instincts hee hee hee!
There seemed to be a high pitched giggling coming from all
around Rita.
Yes, my tasty… Come closer…
As Rita approached the passage, she smote it with her sword as
it started to bleed and screech in pain. The passage turned into
a little demon that has now fallen to its demise while cursing
Rita until the end of time. Rita started to finally walk back
while muttering Not everything is as it seems… Final rule – do
not trust everything you smell…
As Rita finally reached the altar, she has found that the
object lying there was none other than Carnwennan – her good old
dagger. As soon as Rita picked it up though, she noticed that
she was no longer in the temple ruins but standing in darkness
once again only this time with a bright white light around her.
Rita…
As soon she heard that voice, Rita jumped on her spot and
turned to where the voice came from. There she saw everyone she
knew and remembered including Belinda, Malwa, Anastice, Dula and
Elle from the outskirts surrounded by a gray faint light.
Rita… Come back to us… We… need you…
Rita automatically started to make her way to them until she
heard another familiar voice.
“Stop right there, child!” behind her, Rita found Marketa
surrounded by a blue light and Kiera surrounded by a purple
light.
Rita…
“But… they’re calling me…” Rita pleaded.
Rita…!
“Fool! They are mere illusions! Realise that!” Kiera shouted
angrily.
RITA!!!
The cries were unbearable to listen to and Rita turned around
again and stated to approach the people she knew for the longest
and whom she trusted the most – the outskirt dwellers.
“No-!” before Kiera could run towards Rita, Marketa lifted her
hand, blocking her, “What are you doing?!”
“Let her go…” Marketa said coolly, “She must decide on her
own… It is part of the trial…”
Rita! Rita!
The cries were becoming happier.
Welcome! Welcome back! Oh we’ll have ever so much fun!
“Yes…” Rita smiled as she was coming closer and closer.
Oh Rita! It’ll be just like the good old times!
Yes! Yes! You could even come with us to the raiding party,
kid! Belinda smiled widely but Rita stopped as soon as she heard
that.
“What?” Rita focused on Belinda’s figure.
You can even carry some of the things we steal! You were
right, you’re old enough now Belinda carried on smiling but Rita
now had her sword withdrawn and was charging at the figures in
front of her.
R-Rita? the smiles of the dwellers were now wiped off as
Rita’s sword cut through thin air, blowing the clouds which were
formed as figures apart. With a sigh of relief, Rita turned
around and started to make her way back towards the now smiling
Marketa and the still annoyed Kiera. As Rita stopped beside the
two, she smiled widely.
“Not bad, hu-?” Rita’s words were lost as Kiera hit her hard
on the head with her bow, “O-ow! What was that for?!”
“Stupid Arthurs! Can you not tell a difference between an
illusion and a living creature?!” Kiera was now shouting at the
top of her lungs.
“Yes, I’m fine, thanks for asking” Rita said sarcastically at
which Kiera only scowled even more.
“Now now, Kiera” Marketa tried to calm Kiera down, “Everything
is fine now so you don’t have to worry.”
“Me?! Worried?! Pff! Yeah right!” Kiera folded her arms and
turned away like a spoiled child who got accused of something
they did not do. After a while, she quickly snapped to Rita: “Be
more careful, Arthurs.”
“Okay… Now that we are all back together…” Marketa stopped
smiling and became serious again, “I believe that we are now at
the heart of the Dream Land…”
It was true, the aura around here did seem the deepest,
darkest and the heaviest.
“So…where is the sauce?” Rita asked as she looked around.
Marketa giggled while Kiera burst out laughing.
“It appears that not only you can’t read but also speak
properly too!” Kiera was pointing her index finger at Rita and
holding back tears as she laughed her head off.
“Now now, Kiera…” Marketa was trying to stop Kiera from
laughing at Rita while Rita went bright red since this was the
second time she messed up the word.
“It is source… not sauce, child” Marketa was still holding
back her giggles as she corrected Rita. After Marketa and Kiera
finally stopped fully laughing and were focused again, Rita
tried again to ask her question.
“Ahem… And where is this…s-source?” she barely managed to say
it right this time.
“Well… Even I am unsure of that, to be honest…” Marketa looked
at Rita apologetically while Kiera started to giggle again. They
looked around but saw nothing but darkness. Rita then noticed
the colours of light which surrounded the three of them.
“Why…why do we glow in different colours?” Rita pointed out at
each of them to show what she meant.
“Huh? What is this crazy badger on about?” Kiera looked
confused.
“I’m sorry? What light?” Marketa also seemed puzzled by Rita’s
question but Rita was not paying attention to them anymore.
Marketa’s blue glow seemed to represent that she was from
Sapphire while Kiera’s purple glow seemed to represent her
heritage with Amethyst and then Rita’s white glow…
“Why white?” Rita asked out loud as she began to pace,
“Because I do not belong to a tribe? But why did the dwellers
have a gray light…even if they were an illusion, I think it was
their identity of heritage…”
“Earth to Arthurs?” Kiera was waving her hands now in front of
the pacing Rita.
“Leave her be… I think she sees more than we do…” Marketa
paused before saying, “She may hold the answer to everything…”
What does this mean? Is it because I’m not part of a tribe?
But then why do I still not have the gray glow from the
outskirts? Just because I left? Surely that’s not it… Rita kept
thinking as she paced around. She suddenly realised a small
detail she missed and took out her sword which started to glow.
Looking closer, the glow was a pale yellow. Before Rita could
realise what this meant, the sword rose from her hands and flew
straight at the void but instead of flying off further, it
clashed straight with the darkness which now looked like broken
glass with some light trying to escape.
“Of course!” Marketa gasped, “This whole void is the poison
itself and the source and root of all evil present here!”
The black shards began to fall apart revealing a bright purple
light which surrounded everyone and everything. When the three
finally opened their eyes, they found themselves now standing in
pure white clouds while the light around them was pale purple.
There were many things such as animals flying around and even
angels.
“…Wait…Did we die and now are in heaven?” Rita looked around,
amazed.
“No…This is the true Dream Land…” Marketa smiled brightly as
she finally could feel at ease.
“Hey look!” Kiera pointed out to a large group of people who
seemed to be the villagers of Glenton who were now confused and
disappearing.
“…Are they supposed to be dissolving like that?” Rita pulled
on Marketa’s dress as she pointed towards the villagers.
“They are merely returning to our realm” Marketa laughed, “And
it is time for us to return as well.”
With those words, Marketa also started to disappear from
Rita’s sight.
“W-wait!” Rita started panicking, “How do I return as well?!”
“Tsk…Arthurs, you fool!” Kiera started moaning as she also
started to disappear, “This is the Dream Land! So just... wake
up!”
“What the?” Rita said as she looked around her to find no one
around her, “AND HOW DO I DO THAT?!”
Rita slumped down, furious that everyone left her behind. Time
passed but she still did not wake up.
“Great!” Rita jumped up and shouted, “I’M STUCK HERE NOW!
THANKS A LOT!! I’VE ALWAYS DREAMED OF THIS!!!”
While Rita was busy being furious, she noticed that her sword
was missing. She looked around but it was nowhere to be seen.
Before she could get even more furious, she was nearly knocked
out by something big and flying which landed near Rita.
“Hellooo!” a bright and cheerful girl waved at Rita. What she
was riding was something between a dragon and a unicorn.
“What… is that thing?” Rita could not take her eyes off the
strange creature.
“It’s Branston the Unigon!” the girl seemed offended that Rita
did not know such a thing, “And I am Harriette!”
Rita did not care much for who the girl was let alone the so
called ‘Unigon’ but what caught her eye was the familiar sword
which the girl possessed.
“Umm…where did you get that sword?” Rita asked while pointing
at her very own Excalibur.
“Oh this old thing? Why it just fell from the sky!” Harriette
patted the sword, “Why?”
“Umm…well…you see…that is my sword” Rita put it bluntly.
“And your proof?” Harriette asked, eyeing Rita suspiciously.
“It…it glows in its master’s hand!” Rita suddenly remembered.
“How do I know that you’re not lying?” Harriette was not easy
to fool.
“Well I can get on you Uni-Dragon whatever it is so you’ll
know I won’t really escape” Rita offered.
“Pff. Right” Harriette laughed, “Don’t take me for a fool!
This is the Dream Land and you can just wake up as soon as you
get it!”
“Well aren’t you supposed to wake up anyway?” Rita tried to
change the subject.
“I am thee Amethystine Dream Land Guardian, silly” Harriette
looked rather amused, “You’re not from around Glenton, are you?”
“Maaaybeee…” Rita coughed and kicked the ground with her foot,
“But can I please have the sword back?”
“Not so easy, fella” Harriette was now teasing Rita by waving
the sword around, “You must win this sword from me!”
“Ugh…Fine” Rita rolled her eyes, “And how do I do that?”
“Hmm…I like riddles! Do you have any good ones?” Harriette’s
eyes lit up.
“If I tell you a riddle you can’t solve, would you give me the
sword back?” Rita asked.
“Bah! That’s too boring! At least three! …Each!” Harriette
paused to think about this, “Tell you what. I ask you three
riddles and you ask me three riddles. The one who has the most
answers right wins!”
“Fair enough…” Rita was not a fan of riddles but she had to
get her sword back, it has proven to be quite useful.
*****************************************************
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