The Vagrant's Tale - Ch. 18

“I do not wish to have to continue onwards with this burden of pain and torment that I now carry with me any longer; can not the Goddess just see fit to forgive myself if I just end it all here and now? Surely, she must understand that I have no cause at all anymore with which even to will myself out of bed in the morning; no, not now when the day I have so greatly desired will never come to pass.”

“In your case, Reoisce’Aihr, it would seem that her divinity has seen fit to make an exception for you grief, but only if first you complete one last task at her holiness’s behest. Before your wish to eternally remove the shackles of all your sorrows can be permitted, you must first travel both hither and yonder across the plains of her great world of Theria; only then, if you still feel the same as you do now, will you be permitted to do as you intend without forever being cast into the Rivers of Ilsq.”

Chapter 18: “Something More Beautiful”

Though the great leviathan of the sky laid listlessly upon the cobble and dirt ground that made up the body of this particular market square – a sword planted deeply within the beast’s right eye, very much the same as one might drive a flag pole into the ground – the fires that were resultant from this foul creature’s wrath presently continued to rage throughout the city of Kyosem. These fires would probably, if they were freely permitted to do so, roar well into the night unless the skies should choose to deign now a good time to release from within themselves the great volumes of moisture that they often did hold. However, the scholar Tallus presently gave little thought to the future well being of this town – or how the presently blazing flames might have an impact on this – as he laid upon the ground hyper ventilating whilst he tried to grasp the greater consequence for the entire world of Theria because of what he had just witnessed only a short while earlier.

However, despite the fact most everyone formerly in the market square had already successfully fled its premises, thanks the gallant efforts of Jysalef and his travelling companions, there suddenly rung out an accented voice of which Tallus was not familiar with, “Quickly, help me to extract this man from the dragon’s jaws at once; if I am to take any action at all to save him, then I will have to be able to do so before it is too late.”

Hoping against all hope that the words just now spoken were not said in jest, the scholar immediately snapped his head up to see the mysterious cyan haired woman – as well as the two youths, Terus and Latte – trying in earnest, as a triumvirate unison, to pry upwards the top of the Dragon’s now lifeless mouth so that the bleeding form of Jysalef Soresh might be pulled from it as requested. Seeing all of this before him, Tallus Osmaard wasted no time in thrusting himself upwards from the dirt floor so that he might lend his own muscle to the efforts of the currently struggling trio. With the quartet of people all lifting forcefully in a great unison, the mouth of the winged terror did quickly move upwards to permit the intentions of the woman whose life Jysalef had so freely sacrificed his own to spare.

Tallus grinded his teeth in pain as he continued to keep the creature’s mouth open while the others worked to first lift Jysalef off the monstrous teeth that impaled his very being, and then afterwards out of the dragon altogether. Once the profusely bleeding vagrant swordsman was no longer within the area of that monstrosity’s maw, the clean shaven scholar exhaled a great sigh of relief as he released the winged animal’s weighty upper jaw. As far as the former student of the sage Miran Via was presently concerned, all would be perfectly well with the world if never again during the remainder of his life did he have to maintain open a dragon’s mouth all by himself.

No sooner than was Jysalef freed from the clutches of  the slain beast, did the Skrandonese woman begin to violently pull at the binding which held secure the plating which – ultimately - had done little to prevent the swordsman from being thoroughly lacerated by the dragon’s teeth. Once the meaningless armor had been discarded aside like the worthless trash that it now very much was, the cyan-haired person wasted no time in ripping completely apart the already torn shirt that had been worn underneath. With the heavily cut up skin below all the armor and clothing at last exposed, the foreigner then reached deeply into a pocket upon her own attire to retrieve from it a string of iridescent beads that came with a curious symbol set in metal at one end; immediately following the retrieval of the curious talisman from her personal belongings, the woman placed it firmly upon Jysalef’s chest as she began to chant out loudly in the Skrandonese tongue.

Both the Scholar, as well as Terus and Latte, watched on earnestly in awe as a soft blue light began to emanate in pulses from where the chanting woman held the Skrandonese artifact up against the body of the fallen swordsman. As the cyan-haired woman’s chanting continued onwards, both the frequency – as well as the brightness – of the pulses of light that emitted from her talisman continued to increase ever more rapidly at what must surely be an exponential rate. Near the end of the process, the three on lookers had to shield their eyes with their sleeves; rather than stare on in curiosity as they would have much preferred to do, for the pulses were becoming both blindingly bright and maddeningly fast as well. This entire show of light and chanting eventually culminated in one final pulse that most assuredly left people even a few blocks away unable to see anything more than spots for the next few minutes.

When their vision did at last manage to refocus once more, what the trio saw before them was something that all logic and common sense told them should not so easily be possible; but still – there it was – Jysalef Soresh was laying upon the ground of the market square with a chest that most certainly did not look like one that had just been most thoroughly and devastatingly punctured by the teeth of a dragon. What was even more noteworthy, the sudden and miraculous lack of injuries aside, was the fact that the rising and falling of the unharmed chest meant that the brave warrior was presently amongst those whom still breathed in air. Both relieved - as well as greatly overjoyed - by what he now saw, the swordsman’s apprentice cried out in joy as he knelt down next to his still living master, “Master Soresh, I thought for surely you had left this mortal coil when the dragon lifted you from off the ground within its accursed mouth!”

Meanwhile, the mysterious cyan-haired woman nervously scanned the surroundings - as she quickly got back up from Jysalef’s side - and began to stow away the mysterious artifact that she had used in the restoration of the man that nearly had given up his life to ensure that she did not lose her own. After finally coming to a conclusion that there was in fact no one else currently present in the market square – which was most likely thanks to both the still presently raging flames, as well as the accursed beast itself that had first started those fires – the blue haired woman turned towards Tallus and bowed quickly before him while worriedly declaring, “I am very sorry, but I must take my leave now. I should never have been seen here in the first place, but I simply just could not leave him like that after all that happened.”

As the woman started to turn, so that she might flee in a direction that those whom had previously fled the market square in avoidance of the dragon had not run, she issued forth another statement “There is still the fact that he has lost a great deal of blood, be sure that he has plenty to eat when he eventually wakes up.”

However, before the Skrandonese woman could bolt from the burning market square, Tallus the Scholar lunged forward to catch her wrist so that he might have some words of his own with her, “You’re a priestess from the neighboring lands of Skrande, are you not? While I can’t begin to fathom why you’d most curiously be so far into Corsinthia as Kyosem itself - to which I am sure you must have your reasons - in gratitude for the very important thing you’ve just done here, I simply must insist that you stay as my guest for the night.”

The woman stood still as she pensively thought about the unlikely offer that had just been given to her before at last she broke the silence declaring, “Very well.”

As Tallus helped Terus lift up the sleeping Jysalef Soresh, so that they might move him to a more proper place for him to sleep off the ordeals of what happened to him earlier that day, the sky began to - from out of nowhere – crackle and boom with lightning as if it was suddenly about to rain. Normally - in a situation like this - Tallus would have made a mental note to file a complaint with Kyosem’s city hall about how inadequately slow the response of the town’s guild of mages had been in conjuring rain with which to douse out the dragon’s fires, but at the moment he was presently nothing but smiles as he had far better things than governmental incompetence to think about this day. He had just seen the most nauseatingly bigoted soldier, emotionally hardened from the effects of the ridiculous war their kingdom had waged against the lands of Skrande, without thought attempt to sacrifice his own life to save a Skrandonese woman from what would have been certain death; and then - immediately thereafter - that very same cyan-haired woman had turned around and performed a holy ritual to ensure that Jysalef’s life did not expire that day either, despite the fact that things could have proven truly grim for her if she had been seen out in the open by the wrong parties.

As far as Tallus Osmaard was concerned - as he quickly moved Jysalef’s limp, yet still living, form back to his house with the help of Terus Kyreon - he had just witnessed something more beautiful than he had ever dared to hope to see in the entirety of his life.