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Age of Arcana-Chapter 9

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After much cruising through the voluptuous blue sky, the two companions sat silent for many hours, much to Kotaro's surprise and Halldora's chagrin.

This was when Halldora decided that it was time to kill the silence.

"Where are we going, anyway?"

"South."

"South?"

"Yep. South."

She nodded, and sulked. Takes me along, but doesn't bother to tell me where. Sheesh. She thought to herself. I should have never joined this loser.

Kotaro noticed the look of sheer annoyance on her face, winding and twisting away at her already serious and miserable demeanor.

"I'll bet now you're wishin' you were back at Odin's, right?" Kotaro said, seizing the opportunity to throw jabs at his wizard companion.

Halldora sneered at him. "You wish." She said, with poison dripping from her tongue. "The only thing that I wish is that this stupid bucket of rust could fly faster!"

Kotaro thought about teaching her a lesson there and then by slamming the speed into overdrive, which would send her flying all the way to the back, pressed against the wall violently. This same thought made him chuckle on the inside, and he was very tempted, indeed. But, ultimately, he decided that a cheap joke was not worth getting his face blown off over.

"Have you ever heard of the Temple of Harsiese?" Kotaro decided to ask hypothetically.

"No." Halldora replied, dropping a tone so harsh, yet tingling with curiosity. Kotaro humoured her. "Well, that's where the second flame is."
Halldora simply nodded and then looked at the dashboard, crossing her arms. "Cool." She feigned nonchalance, but Kotaro was beginning to be able to read her at this point, and he knew well enough that she was a very poor actress. 

Eventually, after a seemingly endless ocean came to a halt, there was land, and a designated parking area for airships. Kotaro was very much relieved about this, as it was better for his ship's condition than the crude mountain range of Norgard.

Halldora felt a rush of excitement when she took a look at this strange new world before her. She did not know what to expect, and this feeling of anxiety and the pounding beats of adrenaline in her heart made each preceding footstep a thousand times heavier than the last. Her ears felt blocked on the inside, and she tilted her head from side to side to try and unblock them. She then pinched her nose and held her breath for a second and the blocked feeling began to subside. All the while a headache began to form behind her eyes.
She was not used to flying at such a high altitude, after all.

Looking at Kotaro, she noticed that he seemed to be fine. He was used to traveling through the skies. Kotaro looked back at Halldora with a small look of concern. "You'll get used to it after a while. Don't worry about it."

Halldora immediately took to defense. "Who's worried? I'm not, that's for sure!"

"Uh-huh."

"I'm not!" Halldora repeated again in protest. "Anyway, what kind of world is this? Is this the Third Plane? The Fourth? The Rolling Deserts?"

The land was a desert with a small village, where many people with dark skin and robes lived. Some walked around shirtless, while others wore headdresses to hide from the blazing sun.

Halldora felt a little bit uncomfortable, and a little bit out-of-place in this village. People stared at her red hair and pale skin with looks that she could best describe as confoundance and others looked at her fashion and snickered. Kotaro's uniform got him many looks of hatred and scorn, as the people of this land had obviously not forgotten what his people, the Meridian Empire had done to them within the last decade.

The Meridian Empire had successfully made them into a colony, and had murdered their Queen, Alicia Vandopelte, after many years of resistance. Her daughter, Beatrix, was held in captivity, after having slain countless Meridian soldiers on and off of the battlefield. She had broken loose, and this thought had entered Kotaro's mind. He wanted to go inside the sacred Temple of the land of Aborai; the Temple of Harsiese, claim his power, and begone as soon as possible. A confrontation with Beatrix could spell out doom for him and his new Sorceress friend.

Halldora looked at Kotaro. "Hey... why are these wierdos looking at us this way? Did your people screw them over, too?"

Kotaro looked back at Halldora. "Oh, you have no idea..." He pulled her aside and walked behind an old building. "Yeah... we screwed them over, Halldora." She looked at him, frustration in her eyes. "And...?"

"I think we ought to make our way out of here quick. They might call Beatrix and tell her that a witch and a Meridian soldier were sighted in the town square."

"Isn't this part of the Empire?" Halldora asked. "Don't you have more to worry about than these sand-people, if that's the case?"

"True..." Kotaro had forgotten that he was wanted as a traitor by the Meridian Empire, and that he was hated by the small safe haven they were in at the moment due to what his people had done. He was in a pretty bad situation.

"And, who is Beatrix?" Halldora asked. "Was she your traveling partner before me?" She sneered as she said this, her lips curling into a small smirk. "Because if that's the case..."

"No, she was not." Kotaro replied. "She's... well... she's dangerous. She's called The Princess of Serpents for a reason. Legend has it that she wields two swords in battle, both possessing the spirits of two Snake gods, which grants her unspeakable power. People think that this is why she was able to slaughter three-thousand Meridian soldiers in one day."

"Three thou---!" Halldora was genuinely impressed by this feat, but then rationality kicked in. "No; that has to be a myth. Even with magic... do you have any idea how incredible a feat it would be for somebody to---"

"Apparently it's true." Kotaro said with a terrified nod.

"I hope you burn in the Nine Hells," Halldora cursed towards Kotaro. "bringing me along for this." She kicked some dirt at him, and he covered his face. "This is the first time I leave Elrune and you want me to die before actually seeing the world?"

"I won't let that happen," Kotaro said, trying to calm the hysterical Halldora. "but I'll need you to cooperate with me first!"

"Like hell!" Halldora sneered. "I'm going back on that flying scrap heap and going home!" She stormed angrily out from behind the house and Kotaro followed after her, pulling her back.

"Unhand me, you cur!" Halldora yelled, wrenching her arm free.

"You can't go anywhere without the keys, anyway!" Kotaro said, smiling crudely. "Now, come on! The Temple should be past the military checkpoint!"

"And you're just gonna go, flashing that ugly mug around, dilweed?" Halldora pointed out. "Obviously somebody is going to recognize you, and then we'll both get killed!"

"That's where you come in," Kotaro reassured. "surely you know a transfiguration spell, or something that would disguise me."

"I... actually don't." Halldora said.

"Wow, some sorceress!" Kotaro said, throwing his hands to the side in frustration. "Now what am I---"

"I can learn, Nimrod!" Halldora spat. She reached into her hat and pulled down a book. "Know what this is?"

"A Spellbook?" Kotaro mused.

"Yes." Halldora replied. She opened the book and gazed at the table of contents. "Ah! Transfiguration, page 158-196."

"We don't have the time for you to read all of that! We have to move now!" Kotaro was in near-panic mode at this point.

"Maybe you should have filled me in on the details before we got here, right?" Halldora taunted. "But you're lucky; I happen to have an eidetic memory, and a habit of scanning pages quickly. I'll read on the way there."

She walked close to Kotaro, and they walked behind most of the buildings, staying from plain sight. After a while, Halldora closed her book and stuffed it back in her pointed hat. "Okay!"

She moved back from Kotaro and took out her staff. "Ready for this, Kotaro?"

"Could I ever be ready?"

"I'm going to transfigure your face."

Kotaro felt nervous and began to have cold feet. Was the power of the Kanesada worth all of this suffering?

Yes, obviously, because he was doing it, after all.

"Will you stop shaking?" Halldora began to grow agitated. "It's not like I've never performed magic before!"

"B-but... you've never performed this kind before!"

"Yeah, yeah. You'll be my first attempt. Don't worry!" Halldora said with a dictative tone of voice. "Just hold still, or something will go wrong!"

"Don't worry. Right." Kotaro repeated.

"Transgenesis articulae!" Halldora invoked as a bright light flashed from her staff and touched upon Kotaro's face.

Kotaro howled with pain as the flaming sensation burned into his hair follicles and into his pores, his face muscles, and his skeletal bone structure. He felt every second of agony, and as quickly as it began, so too did it end.

What happened could only be described as a plastic surgery gone horribly wrong.

His face was critically disfigured, and he made the Hunchback of Notre Dame look like an Angel by comparison. His left eye was swollen beyond belief, and his jaw was slacked, and his tongue hung out. His nose curled upwards like a bat's, and his right eye was bloodshot.

"How do I wook?" he asked, his speech as disfigured as his face.

"Uh... don't hate me." Halldora said, a look of anxiety forming over her face.

"Uh-oh..." Kotaro said, as he already knew. "Oh, weww... at weatht thee won't weconnithe me."
Madness ensues yet again! A transfiguration spell gone horribly wrong! Oh, what oh, what could happen next?

chapter 8:  dinahmite64.deviantart.com/art…


chapter 10: COMING WHENEVER
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