A day in Lazulis (1/4)(ENG)

In good company

Dagran woke up before sunrise and left the Tavern making less noise as possible. Only the tapster Kentis and that fortune teller who always stood in front of the Tavern had noticed him. He wandered for hours around the island, ruminating on the latest happenings, before stopping on that cliff. It was a remote and peaceful place, perfect for stand alone for a while; something that he really needed at the time. He stayed for a while staring at the horizon, lost in thought, stirred as the waves far below him, without finding the solace he sought.
Tired of his ruminations, Dagran folded his hands behind the head and let himself fall backwards on the grass next to his two swords, legs dangling from the spur. At that point, clearing his mind seemed the right choice to make.
Suddenly, he noted in the air that strange dust, like dried fragments of petals. Now it came everywhere. Dagran stared at it, on his toes, but before it could rest on the grass, the wind drove it over the cliff, toward the open sea.
This dust... is it truly the sign that our world is dying?
But where it appeared more, he knew, people tended to get sick, to wither. And whoever survived was not so lucky.
He was actually poisoned by time, however the cures that Mirania gave to the group during their battles has slowed the progress of the disease, allowing him to hide the thing at all, even to her.
Maybe in the long run, she could heal him completely...
Dagran closed his eyes and drove away the dust from his mind, he blew it away like the wind just did and stayed lying down for a while, alone with the cry of the seagulls.
He dozed until the sun peeped out from the rocks above, when the hunger pangs remembered him that it was almost noon.
He remained for longer than expected, not to mention that sleeping alone in a place so exposed and far from any potential aid was a long shot.
Dagran stood up and after getting dusted the short chain mail and his arms, he gave one last look around. He considered the idea of settling for some wild fruits and stay there to enjoy the tranquility of that corner a little longer, but the hunger was too much: his stomach wanted meat, and there wasn't any. He passed an hand between his dark hair. Might as well go back to the tavern.
He secured the swords to the belt, covered them with the cape around his waist and started for the split in the rock wall behind him. He manoeuvred between the spikes of the passage for about ten minutes, with the little light coming from the cracks over his head to reveal the way, before arriving at the main gallery which gave access to the Stargazers' Tower. Turning to the right, he gave his backs on the  sunlit ruins just past the exit and got ready to go to town when a young female voice behind him called his name.
«Dagran, is it you?»
He knew that voice. From the entrance of the ruins he saw the red hair of Ariela rapidly approaching, followed by Jenna, the merchant who lived at the tavern.
Once she reached him, the girl had to raise her head to catch his eye and gave him a smile while recovering her breath.
«I never expected to find you here. Where did you come from? When we passed before, there was nobody.»
«I arrived a little while ago to take a look at the tower...» he improvised «...but I didn't realize the time and then I was on my way to the Tavern. Anyway, why you two are here? It may be dangerous to walk around on your own.»  
«Oh, don't worry» Jenna replied quiet slapping one hand on her hip.
Only then Dagran noted that, in addition to a half-empty bag, the woman had a sword hanging on the belt of her pants, together with a small crossbow.
«I can both sell and use weapons very well» she said with a chuckle.
«I wished to see the waves of the sea, so I asked Jenna to join me» Ariela explained «You know, there is always a large throngs at the harbour and the entrance to the town and I wanted to stay in a place a little more quiet. We were coming back too now. Do you want to take the road together?»
He willingly accepted. Dagran didn't know much about Jenna, but Ariela was always a pleasant company at the Tavern, and now that he saw her outside the walls of her house, she seemed almost more cheerful than usual.
«Why all this desire to see the sea?» he asked her after a while, partly out of curiosity and partly in the hope that the chitchat were enough to cover the  insistent and increasingly protests of his stomach.
«Well, remember the wall with the foreign moneys at the Tavern?» she started «Every time I look at it, it makes me want to travel, and watch the sea makes me feel like I could reach any place.»
«That's a nice thought» he said while Jenna pulled out of the bag a couple of apples and gave one of them to him. «Maybe someday you'll not just going to watch it, but you will sail and visit exotic lands for real, you never know. Look at me: as a child I wanted to become a Knight and that's why as soon as I could I founded a group of mercenaries with Zael. We worked hard and after many efforts the dream is almost done» he concluded giving a strong bite to the fruit he had in hand. No matter how small, that apple brought him a big relief.
«Sure, I heard that you and your friend have been appointed to Knights in training,» Jenna began to say «now that he has passed the trial of the Tower, I assume you too will take the challenge, aren't you?»
Seeing him nod, she continued: «I'm glad to see that someone eventually realizes their childhood dreams. I suppose that as a child you imagined to fight for justice or anything with a glittering armour, uh?»
«Yeah, sort of...»
At the beginning it was so, but after the destruction of his village and the death of his family, he had decided to do it for revenge. It was just a fortunate coincidence that the General Ashtar had taken Zael in sympathy.
Now everything was simpler: just a little more and he would finally kill the man who had destroyed his life.
But that would be only the first step toward his real goal, and although it pained him, it was necessary that Zael didn't know nothing of his plans; he was too idealistic to pursue revenge along with him.
Curious, how two kids, orphaned for similar reasons and grew up together, have become two men with very different points of view...
After a few moments of silence he noticed that Ariela and Jenna were staring at him, waiting for some more details.
«Well,» he continued pointing his mail «this stuff is certainly not the armour that I imagined as a child, but as a mercenary I couldn't afford more. And being paid from the first comer to do anything he ask, that can't be defined “fight for justice”.»
Ariela reminded him that, after all, from their arrival in Lazulis they helped lots of people in need, and she was one of them, without asking anything in return and that's got to count for something.
Jenna instead looked at him with an intensity that make him feel uncomfortable.
«That chain mail looks a little dated indeed, and it seems even too thin.»
Apparently she was more interested in their means that their purposes «It's not some stuff that I would sell, but I guess it served to something, since you're still here to talk about it.»
«Who knows how many have you seen!» said Ariela enthusiastic «Come on, tell us some adventure that you lived with your comrades!»
Dagran scratched his head trying to buy time «Uh, frankly Ariela, I don't really like to talk about our work. For the most part they are not pleasant memories.»
The girl seemed disappointed, but after a few seconds, she returned to the attack.
«Maybe you can tell us about what you did here in Lazulis. Here things went well: I've already heard some rumors at the tavern, but you could give us all the details. I wished to ask to your friends, but I didn't want to bother anyone...»
And now that he was alone with her and Jenna, he was at her disposal.
«That's fine. What do you want to know?» sighed Dagran.
Ariela hadn't need to be told twice «Let's see... maybe something about the time you have taken the medicine for my brother at the den of those bandits... no, maybe instead of when you saved that girl - what was her name, Alice? - at the Flame & Lizard... Ah, I got it!» she said satisfied at the end.
«Tell us about how you saved my sister Meredith. It happened not long ago, so it should be fine, right? Horace was too rough to tell me all...»
«Horace? That guy with glasses who has a shop near the tavern?»
Apparently Jenna knew nothing, while Horace revealed himself as a great chatterbox, but Dagran basically saw it coming: back then, while thanking them for their help, he had let slip details very private about what him and Meredith had done once you return home.
«I didn't know she was your sister. Anyway, Yes, » he confirmed «Meredith was gone and Horace was convinced that she was kidnapped by the "inhabitants" of the abandoned mansion in the northern part of the city. He was right, after all.»
«Oh really? Then the stories were true?»
«There were really ghosts and undeads as they say?» intruded Ariela.
«Uh uh, and too many!»
The two women looked excited and encouraged him to continue.
«Unfortunately I can't tell you much more. Those beings had pop from all over trying to capture us and...» as he spoke, he lowered more and more «... they got me. First. I spent half the time locked in a coffin» he concluded. Jenna arched an eyebrow at those words while Ariela did everything she could to not to burst in laugh in his face.
Typical. After all even Zael and others just smirked at me always for this. If I fall ever in each trap and ambush is only for bad luck, I'm not doing it on purpose!
«Anyway eventually we freed all and thanks to Lowell and Yurick and their powers, we pulverized those things.»
«Why were they kidnapping people? Did they eat them?» Ariela said upset.
«Not them, but their boss. We did not understand what exactly it was – I think it was some kind of vampire or something – however, it fed on vital energy. From what we found out by reading the journals found in there, it had evoked by the nobleman who lived in the mansion to increase his power, but it required constant human sacrifices and in the end the noble was overwhelmed.»
«Creepy... But you have defeated it, right?»
«Of course. It was nothing that we are unable to address after all» Dagran couldn't help but say it with a touch of pride. The thing did not escape to Jenna, who decided to put him back in line.
«Listen to him! Didn't you say that you spent half the time in a coffin? You do have to have used some weird trick to defeat it.»
«Uhm, Zael said the son of the nobleman gave him the right weapons, but there it was just the four of us, Horace and Meredith. Besides, I didn't notice anything different in his weapons.»
«So you were helped by a ghost?»
Dagran nodded.
«Stuff that makes you shudder! » Ariela said «as if Reptids and Guraks were already not enough to cause problems. In any case, as long as there are people like you around, I feel more safe. If someone kidnaps me, please rescue me, okay?» she concluded by putting a hand on his shoulder.
Dagran smiled at her, hoping that his face expressed more embarrassment for the compliment rather than shame for the misplaced trust. To know that in practice to enact his revenge it was him to lead Guraks on the island, would it make her feel anything but safe.
Fortunately when he turned his gaze forward again he realized that they had now reached the large and busy access route to Lazulis.
Ariela moved away from the cliffs overlooking the western side of the road and reached the fence looking out on the sea: despite their hurry, she wanted to stay a minute there to watch the horizon a little more.
Jenna approached her and the two began to talk, but Dagran stayed back. Looking around he noticed that several people in the middle of that throngs were staring at him, as if they knew him. He answered politely to their greets and watched them leave excited, like they met some kind of celebrity. Still others, though in smaller numbers, pretended to not having seen or seen angry wit. He had to make a considerable effort of self-control so that his face never showed the contempt he felt for all those people.
Hypocrites.
Thanks to Zael's official businesses, now he and the rest of the group were taken into greater consideration, but upon their arrival in Lazulis what kind of welcome they received? Step aside as lepers, almost guilty of the mere fact of existing. And to think that just arrived a few months earlier, right down to one of the outlets of the same road, they had saved the children from the attack of that strange white tiger: all praise and thanks, at least until they discover that their heroes were mercenaries ... a fine way to say thank you!
«Hey, Dagran! We're here!»
Ariela and Jenna were waiting for him to come up to the city gates.
Two of the few people who didn't stop at appearances and treated them with respect. Of course, given their trades was quite normal to treat in that way some potential customers, however, over time and remembering past experiences, he and the others realized that their kindness was sincere.
And moments like that underlined it even more.
«I'm coming» he answered and with the two women e crossed the gates and went on up the hill leading to the town of Lazulis.