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Chapter 16: A Storyteller

"What is the meaning of this?" Matthias demanded once they were far enough away from the city to bring this up to the knights. "I know my mother sent you, but that is no reason to risk conflict over something as trivial as a misunderstanding."

Raiden had to give it to Matthias, he really acted like a noble. In a good way, of course. He could easily see Matthias take command as a knight.

But those knights ignored him. Raiden supposed the knights' only taking orders from his mother. He supposed Lady Scifo would have more authority and given orders to bring Matthias back home, no matter what.

"Not very talkative," Tamara commented.

"Is this how you treat the kids of nobles?" Paul asked. "I'd figured they'd be able to command you without a second thought."

There were a couple of annoyed grunts from the knights. But they still didn't reply. Raiden wasn't sure what to think of them. They seemed composed and possibly level headed. Yet they demanded Matthias from the Guilds. The knights seemed like completely different people now.

As if to verify the knights would react to anything, Elena spoke up. "You knights were pretty vocal and now nothing. It's like you're intimidated by a bunch of kids and a useless guild member." But she only got one person riled up.

"Seriously," Paul snapped at Elena who just rolled her eyes.

Raiden had to give it to them. There were very few people that could resist Elena's remarks.

Matthias tried to get the knights to answer his questions, but to no avail. So they pretty much walked for a couple of hours without much word exchanged even among themselves.

They were staying on the main road but then the knight in the front started walking toward the old path. The one that was used before the main road was made, which was quicker and safer from Dahngrest to Heilord. The old path was the long way that only hunters and gatherers used.

"Far be from a guild member to tell knights what to do," Paul began. "But we'll be out of your hair a lot sooner if we take the other path."

Finally, one of knights spoke. "There's been an accident on the main road," the knight answered. "It's just a little further ahead, but it's prevent anyone from going any further without going into the thick forest."

"What kind of accident?" Mathias asked.

"The storm almost a week ago, it caused flooding and landslides, Honestly the longer path will be safer and quicker at this time," the knight said.

"It was a bad storm," Rune recalled. "But if it was that bad, then how did the rundown rest stop we stayed at remain standing?"

"It must have hit other places harder," another knight quickly answered. "You all were fortunate to survive that night."

That was…a weird way to put that. They could have been seriously hurt or worse if they hadn't found that rest stop when they did. What was fortunate for them was surviving their fight with Henry with not much injuries.

"Funny that you say that the main road is like that," Elena started to comment and Raiden just then realized that Elena didn't have a book in her hand. In fact, he was sure that she hadn't been reading much this whole time. "Because the road you all want to go on is prone to landslides and flooding due to going round the cliffs. So if what you're saying is true about the main road, then that means this road would have to buried under water and the cliffs."

"The best engineers of the guilds made that road," Tamara said with pride for some reason. "It wouldn't fall to some flimsy storm."

"I wouldn't exactly call that storm flimsy," Rune commented.

"What are you all talking about?" Matthias asked. Raiden also had a hard time following.

"Listen you brats," a knight snapped. "You all have been safe in the city. We've seen what the main road is like. Don't act like you know more than adults."

"Do you also want me say just how much of a cliché you all are being," Elena began to add without missing a beat and sounding really annoyed. "You're really plan on luring us off the beaten path to get 'get us'. Couldn't you come up with something a little more original or new?"

"You little-," a knight began to threaten and was even starting to draw their weapon.

"What do you think you're doing?" Matthias demanded and even got between the knight and Elena.

Ignoring Matthias, another knight said, "Lets just get this over with."

"Fine," the knight in the back said. That one drew his sword out and Paul was just as quick to ready his sword.

"The hell?" Paul shouted and looked ready to attack. But he knew not to be the one that attack first.

"Just wait for moment," Matthias tried desperately to get the knights' attention. To no avail.

The knight that was right in front of Matthias fully drew his sword and Raiden can see he had the intention of cutting Matthias down. "Matthias, behind you," Raiden shouted and made a dash toward him.

Thankful Matthias did look behind to notice the attack. He had enough training to get out of the way of the knight's attack. However he tripped over his own feet and feel to the ground hard.

As the knight raised his sword, Raiden realized that he wouldn't make it. He quickly planted his feet to send out an arte. Hopefully it would be enough to phase the knight for Matthias to recover.

Raiden swung his blade back to build up enough mana for an Azure Edge. Before he had a chance to release it, there came a startled scream from a girl. Raiden didn't have a chance to even look to see who made that noise because a girl suddenly stumbled out of the foliage and knocked into the knight. The knight wasn't expecting it and the girl had enough force that they both fell to the ground.

It gave Raiden the time he needed to reach Matthias. He quickly kicked at the knight's hand to make him lose his grip on his sword. Raiden ended up hurting his foot because he kicked knights gauntlet off.

"Raiden," Rune shouted.

Raiden looked up in time to see Rune cast a Stone Blast spell past him. One of the other knights must have been trying to save their companion that Raiden now had his knee on top of. They were out cold now and Raiden gave his friend nod.

Paul probably would have already taken care of the knight he had squared up on. But Tamara kept trying to "help". Meaning she was would get in the way of Paul's attacks and he'd bicker at her to stay away. The knight just seemed confused.

Raiden looked for his sister and saw that she was close Shea who was fighting the last knight. She only had one dagger out and seemed to be focusing on using her right side. She might be trying a new stance. Elena, well she wasn't really doing anything. She just stood back like she was watching everything. He would have to talk with Elena about that later.

"Matthias, could you find something to restrain these guys with?" Raiden asked as the knight underneath him continued to struggle. Raiden was sure the heavy knight armor helped in keeping him down.

"Y-yeah," Matthias forced out as he finally got up. He seemed to be hiding his face from Raiden and even trying to fix his hair back to covering his eye. Raiden could only imagine what Matthias was feeling.

He didn't have long to wonder about Matthias because he heard a girl's voice say, "Ow, my head." Raiden couldn't believe he had almost forgotten the girl that pretty much tripped and saved Matthias. She looked to be around Raiden's age and had long, light green hair. She had purple headband tied on her forehead and wore a grey dress that had slits on the sides up to her hips with a dark green crop jacket with a hood. On her back was a large tome that was the size of a traveling backpack. On her belt was two books that on her hips and several pouches.

"Are you okay miss?" Raiden asked her.

"Yes, I was just so startled when I saw those bodies," she answered.

"Bodies?" Raiden repeated.

"Good, that one's still conscious," Paul interrupted as he dragged an unconscious knight. It looked like he finally got a good hit on his opponent. Raiden quickly glanced and saw that the knight Shea was fighting had his helmet off and Shea just managed to strike his temple with the butt of her dagger.

Paul motioned for Raiden to move and quickly made the knight sit up. Paul stabbed his large blade into the ground just barely a hairs width from the knight's hand. Raiden even took the helmet off so they could look him in the eye. "What the hell was your goal?" Paul demanded. "Were you planning to kill the Scifo kid and pin it on me so you can start this war?" Paul was angry. In fact Raiden had never seen the guild member like this. He was glad that he wasn't receiving this.

"Like I have to answer to a filthy guild member," the knight muttered.

"Then what about a noble," Matthias snapped. His whole body was rigid as he stood tall with all the authority a noble's son could. If they had been kids, Raiden would have thought Matthias was on the verge of tears. But this was rage.

That's when Raiden noticed Matthias' face. The knight that attacked him somehow managed to cut most of his bangs. There was a large scar on the side of his temple and right beside his eye that he covered with his hair. There was something wrong about Matthias' eye. It was unnaturally still.

The knight only spit in Matthias' direction. That only fueled his rage more.

But Elena walked up to the knight. "You seem to be clutching something pretty tightly in your hand," she commented.

No that she mentioned it, they noticed the knight did seem to be holding something. The hand Raiden had kicked the gauntlet off of. The knight said nothing and tried to act like it wasn't a big deal.

But Elena could see right through it. She quickly stomped on the knight's wrist. It made and awful sound and the knight made out a sound to match. His hand had no choice but to uncurl to show he wasn't holding anything, just hiding something.

A tattoo of clowns face with an A on the forehead.

"Circus Anarchy," Rune gasped.

Elena put her hands in her pocket. "Seem they were hoping to spark conflict by killing us and pinning it on the guilds. Too bad it was stupid. I mean you only take people in the middle of the woods to kill us. Honestly you should have tried this on the main road. We couldn't have suspected as quickly, plus people would have found our dead bodies a lot easier."

"Elena," Raiden and Rune both said sounding started by what she was saying. But Raiden quickly started feeling a bit annoyed. How long did she suspect this and decided not to share with the rest of them?

"They also weren't very convincing as knights," Shea added. "While it's true that entry level knights where whatever armor is available, higher ranked knights have their armor that fit perfectly. Each one of you have an emblem that you are a lieutenant or higher, yet it looks like you must have lost a lot of weight or shrank after being fitted with your armor."

That would explain how Raiden was able to kick off the gauntlet so easily. It was subtle, but not that he was really looking, Raiden could see that there were parts in each of their armor that didn't look quite right. Shoulders too big. Helmet too small. Things like that.

"Where you girls going to clue the rest of us in?" Paul asked sounding annoyed.

"Oh please," Tamara started to say. "It was so obvious."

Paul hit Tamara in the head. "Don't lie. You didn't have any idea."

Just then the imposter knight started laughing. "The abyss is coming, once the fighting starts, everyone will see the abyss and it will be the true world," he started going on and laughing some more.

Elena then dealt a swift kick to the imposters head. Knocking him out cold. "I'm really not interested in hearing crazy," Elena complained. Everyone else nodded in agreement.

Then it hit Raiden. He quickly looked to the girl that tripped on the imposter. She was dusting herself off. "You mentioned bodies before," Raiden said out loud.

The girl was slightly startled. "That's right. I guess you could say I was so startled by seeing them I just ran as fast as I could to get away. I was careless and ran into you all."

"How many bodies were there?" Paul asked.

The girl shook her head. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I didn't pay much attention to that. Perhaps there were four."

"Could you please take us there?" Matthias suddenly asked and even had his head bowed to the girl. "I know it must have been hard on you, but please, if they are the knights that Circus Anarchy killed. I want to pay my respect and return their helmets and weapons to them."

"I'd also like to verify. That way we have the full picture to tell," Paul added.

The girl seemed to consider it. She looked more sad than frightened. She folded her hands together and said, "My only worry is that it might be too dangerous. Their spirits are restless due to being murdered like they were. But maybe paying respect would help ease them on."

"What are you talking about?" Rune asked. "You can't be talking about ghosts."

The girl didn't say anything and looked rather uncomfortable. "Don't tell me," Paul started to realize. "These ghosts are what made you run through the forest."

"I ran because I didn't know how to help them," she said softly.

"But you saw dead bodies, right?" Raiden asked. That was what really mattered.

"Yes," she answered.

"Then I think it's at least worth checking out," Raiden said to everyone.

Paul gave sigh. "Fine. Matthias, you want us to bring the helmets and the weapons?" Paul could understand what Matthias was feeling. If these bodies were the real knights then they should at least have the dignity of being identified as knights. They all knew that they couldn't bury them. They didn't have the tools. So this was the least they could do.

"Yes, and can you take the emblems? That way their families can have something," Matthias said. Then he hands made fists. "These people have no right to where this armor."

"We can't carry all of it," Shea said. "But what about we strip as much we can from these guys and throw them as far as we can. That way at least it won't look bad that knights were tied up in Guild territory."

"What do you propose we do to tie them up?" Matthias asked. "We don't have any rope or anything else that could restrain them."

"Oh, I could help with that," the girl offered.

"Then it's settled," Paul said as he started pulled the armored boots off one. "Now get to working, we're burning daylight."

They all started. Shea even suggested that they cut the leather binding so if these imposters woke up and freed themselves they couldn't be able to put the armor back on properly. Tamara started gathering the imposters' supplies.

As they were getting close to finishing, Raiden decided to asked Matthias, "How did you end up with that scar?"

Matthias flinched at that and even messed with his hair to try and cover it up. "About two years ago," Matthias started. "I took the knight academy exam. But in my physical portion of the test…there was an accident. Then my mother pulled me out even though I could have still passed. You can probably already tell, but this is a glass eye…" Matthias didn't want to go into any more details than that.

"Oh," was all Raiden could say at first. He had an internal shake as he thought about Lady Scifo's reaction to the accident. "I'm surprised that your mother did have the perpetrator hanged for that," Raiden said in an attempt to lighten the mood.

But Matthias looked so serious. "She almost did," he said. And Raiden could tell that that was a more painful memory than when he had the accident.

Raiden kept his mouth shut. So Matthias had been on his way to accomplish his dream. But Lady Scifo's worst fears came true and she prevented him from going on.

Raiden had seen his own parents react that way when Elena was hurt. They pulled her from school, mainly because she didn't want to go back. But if she had ever wanted to go back, there isn't a doubt that his parents would have let her go. So it was hard for Raiden to imagine how Matthias felt. To not get to choose.

Once the imposters looked like commoners, they moved them all together and Raiden looked to the girl to asked what she had planned. Then realized something. "Sorry but we never did get your name?"

"Oh," the girl said sounding startled like she also just realized that. "Yes…um…my name…" she struggled like she had to remember it. "Yes, its Agatha," she said with confidence. "Agatha the Storyteller."

"Well, Agatha, what are you planning to do with these guys?" Paul asked.

Agatha pulled a quill from her pouch and started humming. A magic circle appeared underneath her and she was moving the quill like she was writing. "Bind," she said as the spell was cast.

Magical chains appeared around the imposters that tied them together and tied their limbs so they couldn't move. "These will probably last until someone finds them. Or monsters get them. Either or," Agatha explained.

"That's a pretty high level spell," commented as he seemed to be working out how she did that in his head.

"Thanks, Ms. Agatha," Matthias said. "Would you care to show us where you found the bodies now?"

"Alright," Agatha said looking rather grim. "But do be careful."

Paul seemed to be fighting the urge to say something. But didn't.

Agatha began to lead them into the thick forest. As Raiden followed, he heard his sister ask bluntly, "What happened to your arm?" Raiden turned around to see what she was talking about. But it wasn't directed at him. It was to Shea.

She had a smile as she said, "It was right before I entered Dahngrest. I must have disturbed a nest of monsters, one was particularly agitated. It hit me right in the shoulder. It's still pretty sore. So I've been trying not to use it as much."

"If it still hurts, Elena could probably heal it," Raiden suggested.

"No need," Shea said. "It's almost healed. I'm just being overly cautious. Besides, it's a good excuse for training."

"I kind of thought that's what you were doing earlier," Raiden admitted.

He noticed that Elena rolled her eyes. Then she started walking with the others. If their mother were here, she would have insisted on healing Shea. Elena wasn't like that. She only healed other people if she had to. He knew his sister couldn't help but act cold like that. But he wished she didn't.

/~/~/

Skit: Character Points

Matthias looking down: …

Elena: …Plus five points.

Matthias startled: Huh?

Elena: Character points. I'm giving you five points. Characters that suffer from an injury or disability get points. So missing an eye from a training accident gets you five character points because that's kind of cool. But only five because you put a glass eye in. That's not as cool.

Matthias: Elena…

Paul suddenly appearing: So I guess I've got some cool points because of my eyepatch, right?"

Elena looking annoyed: No way, eyepatch is lame plus the story of how you got it. Minus fifteen point. *Storms off.

Paul annoyed: Brat…*Walks off.

Matthias alone: Cool points, huh? I've only ever been told how it was a tragedy or that it ruined my image…Thank you Elena.

/~/~/

"It should be around here somewhere," Agatha tried to recall.

They were far from any road that was made for travel. Raiden was just waiting for a monster to pop out or if this was just another trap. But the more he thought about it, the more convoluted it seemed. Elena wasn't reading, but that was due to the uneven terrain. So that explained Elena's annoyed look.

"You ran pretty far," Rune commented.

"Like I said, their spirits were restless," Agatha replied.

Sable sniffed the ground and began to whine. Elena knelt next to her dog and stroked her head to calm her.

"We might be closer than you think," Paul said.

"What makes you say that?" Matthias asked.

"The smell," was all Paul said. Raiden took his word for it. He started breathing through his mouth to prepare. Paul then started walking toward the direction he was smelling. "Tamara, stay here," Paul order.

"O-okay," Tamara surprisingly agreed and stayed next to Sable.

"I-I'll stay with Tamara," Rune volunteered, although Raiden was pretty sure it wasn't to keep watch over Tamara.

"Good idea," Raiden told him. "Elena, you should stay-" but he didn't finish because his sister was walking right behind Paul. And he knew this wasn't one he could win.

"Wait, the spirits," Agatha called. But everyone else kept walking except those that stayed.

And it wasn't long before Raiden almost gaged at the smell. "Looks like they've been dead for three days maybe," Paul then said.

Raiden was then startled. They found the bodies and someone Raiden almost over look them. Most of them were covered in bushes and leaves. But it was clear that the monsters had been feeding on them. From what little they could tell, there were four bodies, no shoes and were wearing what one might wear underneath heavy armor.

Agatha caught up to them and suddenly looked startled. But not at the dead. "The spirits…they've been quilled…" Raiden could hear her mutter.

"Maybe they knew they took care of the men that murdered them and brought their weapons back to them," Raiden offered. He wasn't sure what Agatha might have seen. Maybe she was trying to downplay being scared of seeing the bodies. Traveling in the woods alone and seeing dead people, of course that would be horrifying.

Agatha didn't say anything. She folded her arms and seemed to be thinking.

"Well let's give them their stuff and offer our condolences," Paul told them. "Come on kid," he said to Matthias.

But Matthias was frozen in place. His eyes locked on the dead knight. Paul came over and took the equipment from Matthias carried and laid it in front the dead. Raiden quickly did the same and so did Shea.

"Sorry we can't bury you. I hope this will be enough," Raiden said out loud.

They all had a brief moment of silent for the fallen knights before Paul said, "Come on, I want to make so more ground before the sun falls."

No one objected and the started walking back to Rune and Tamara.

"May I ask where you all are going?" Agatha suddenly asked.

"We're going to-" Raiden started to say Aurnion. But Paul elbowed him.

"Heilord is our next stop," Paul told her quickly.

"Would you care if I come?" Agatha asked.

"If you don't care to answer why," Paul said. It would seem he was suspicious after they've been attacked by Circus Anarchy. That was twice now. They had to mean they're officially targeted.

"My master always told me if I find an interesting story, I follow it," Agatha said with a smile.

"What interesting story are you hoping to follow?" Elena asked.

"Well you all seem pretty interesting already," Agatha told them.

"Whatever," Paul said sounding tired. "Don't expect me to look after you."

"Of course, just think of me as an observer," she told him.