The Courage of an Alliance

Chapter 3

Grief had fallen over the Aspenwood Forest. The Count was found in his bed, with a knife in his chest. That afternoon there would be a memorial service in the counts honor, held by none other than Jun. In the meantime, Jun would tell Safra of his success.
"My lord, I have recovered the Counts insignia." Jun held a symbol with a strange blue aura surrounding it in his hands.
"My child, a success like this deserves a reward! Place the insignia against your palm." Jun did as Safra said. The insignia fused into his skin, and suddenly Jun felt a strange tingling in his hand. From his hand it went to his arm, then body and it spread all over. The tingling turned to an unpleasant shaking. When the tremors stopped, Jun found himself laying on the ground in a fetal position. "Now focus all of your energy into that hand." Jun held his hand out and did as he was told. A burst of lightning flew out of his hand, shattering the mirror where his master resided.
"Oh no… What have I done?"
"Do not fear, young one" Safra appeared in one of the fragments. "It is not as though your mirror held a magical power. I will be there whenever you need me. This power will allow you to fulfill your mission. Kill Elder Rhea, take her insignia, then free Shiro!"
"Now all that is left is this accursed speech, then I will be done with the Aspenwood Forest forever. I will simply accuse Paul and Taby of the Counts murder. I can hear people talking about it now, "The count would have never guessed that the people meant to protect him would take him to the mists!" Well I truly should be off now, we don´t want any more people knowing of our meetings." Jun left the room, leaving Safra to itself. Safra doesn´t live in a mirror all of its life, that is just a way of communication. It´s home is at the bottom of the ocean of Orr, where its palace and loyal minions are also located. It sits upon its throne of skulls from the victims it has slain. It sits there, and waits, and waits, and waits. Today would be different though. Today, Dark Lord Safra would take action.
"Bliss! Blasphemy! Come to me!" Two dark looking puppets appeared before Safra. They were Safra´s court jesters. Bliss wore all white with black jingles, while Blasphemy wore all black, with white jingles. Both of them wore disturbing masks. Bliss had a mask with a demented smile crafted upon it, where as blasphemy´s was a sad face, with red tears coming from the eye sockets.
"You called, my lord?"
"You are indeed correct Bliss, You called?"
"I am worried that Jun is incapable of my job I have for him. He will be encountering Taby and Paul soon, but I was thinking that maybe I could skip that part of the prophecy."
"This sounds enjoyable, Blasphemy."
"Oh, what a happy job he is giving us!"
"I want you two to kill Paul and Taby. Not only that, but make sure it is the most painful event that they shall ever experience."
"Oh I can already smell their blood!"
"Don´t forget the rotting flesh!"
"I would get any other minion to do this but then I remembered that I ate their brains, so you two are all that I have. Don´t come back if they are still alive, for you shall not be treated very kindly"
"And with that, we are off!"
"Faster than a moa bird!"

"So… Griffin… That´s a uhmmmm nice bow you have there."
"I carved it from the jade that we stand on. Nothing can break this. We should be arriving at the kracken´s lair very soon, so keep your guard up." Out in the distance the three adventurers could hear someone screaming.
"AAAUGH! Its an octopus thing!" It was mystery, who was also on a mission, but giving an invitation to a very old woman is clearly not as important as stopping an evil demon from destroying the world. The three ran to her with their weapons drawn, but it was merely a kraken spawn. The only significance this creature had was that it meant they were very close to the mother. Taby was very disappointed.
"Lady look, its only a tiny little thing. It is probably more afraid of you than you are of it" As Taby said that, the baby kraken shot a bolt of lightning at her, flinging her back. Mystery then shot a strange purple beam at the kraken, causing it to explode. Paul and Griffin simply stared at her.
"Yes, yes, I know what you three-well two, something is strange with that girl laying there (Taby was temporarily unconscious). As I was saying, you two think that I should be a hero and I am not supposed to be an assistant to the emperor." Paul and Griffin now looked confused. "Never mind, do you know where Cavalon is? I need to let Elder Rhea know that she is wanted at Kaining City for the ceremony." Paul spoke up. "It is far to the west, I would show u a path but, considering this is all ocean, I can´t do that. Why are you out here all by yourself? I am surprised that you didn´t get lost earlier."
"well to be honest, I have been lost. Right when I stepped out of Kaining City I was lost-well not really, but you get the point. Why are you out here?" Taby woke up and heard what Mystery said.
"We are off to kill the Giant Kraken. It is part of Cavalon´s own ritual. Every hundred years a giant kraken comes from the depths of the jade sea and we have to destroy it before it makes too many babies." Taby was still a little dazed from her encounter with a lightning bolt.
"Oh my gosh! I think I saw a really big octopus thing laying on the ground dead!" Griffin looked very upset.
"What? Well then take us to it! Something is very wrong if that is our kraken." Mystery led them to the giant crater in the ground, and at the bottom laid the giant kraken, dead. "This doesn´t make any sense; there is no one else here."
"Now I really feel insulted for not being noticed!" Bliss had appeared from thin air, floating above the giant crater.
"I second that, Bliss. This is very rude of you four for not giving us any recognition. You are just upset because we got here first!" Blasphemy had appeared right next to Bliss.
"Blasphemy, I say we teach these travelers some manners on how to respect a valiant hero that has slain a dragon."
"Well Bliss, that isn´t a dragon, but close enough!" The two jesters spun wildly round and round the four heroes, and none of them could see anything, except for black and white. They were all so dizzy, and they simply passed out.

Paul was the first to wake up. He looked around himself, and none of his allies were there. Paul found himself in a white box that was about the size of a room. He looked around, but nothing else was there. Paul suddenly noticed two small black mice in the middle of the room. He looked closer and they were talking, not only that, but they were arguing. Suddenly one of the mice dropped dead and the other one started to cry.
"I am losing my mind" Paul whispered to himself. He wiped his eyes and when he opened them again, there were 2 more mice. This left Paul baffled. One of them started talking to him.
"If two mice were here, and now two more mice are here, how many mice are there now?"
"That´s easy, four!"
"Unfortunately, that´s not correct. One of us died, remember? For answering the question wrong, you get punished." Paul stared at them accusingly, then blinked. None of the mice were there anymore. He looked around, but suddenly heard a strange rumbling sound. The walls around him were shattering, and he saw that he was in a cage being held over by two skyscraper size figures of Bliss and Blasphemy.
"Aww, if you answered the question correctly, we would have let you die quick, but now we will make it slow and painful."
Bliss opened the cage and tried to grab Paul, but Paul pulled out his sword and jabbed it into one of Bliss´s fingers. Where Paul poked at, a strange hole appeared. With no where else to go, he jumped in. Bliss didn´t notice this because he was screaming from pain. Paul now found himself in a tunnel, and saw Griffin go by in a mine cart. He jumped in, and finally felt at ease for the moment.
"Why are you in a mine cart?"
"It is a very long story. Elder Rhea also told us stories of these two. Bliss would put you in an area where you wouldn´t know how to react." Paul looked confused. "For instance, if Bliss put you in a mine cart, you wouldn´t be happy or angry or sad. You would simply be confused.
"How does that kill us?"
"Blasphemy would then create strange events with the same effect."
"Some mice got angry at me." It was then that Griffin looked confused.
"People need to give reactions to something. Without any reactions, a person would come to a conclusion that there is no point to life. He would question the unanswerable; she would wonder why she is alive. Without reactions, we are insane." Paul recalled when he said that he was losing his mind.
"So how do we get out of here?" Paul saw a grave look on Griffin´s face.
"…I don´t know."

- Written by Muscle Man Paul