5

And Thus the Curtains is Raised

Calista

‘Tis the day! the day to be beheld! The day when ink hits the page of our _(my) grand conquest! The masses will say of this day: “Indeed this is where it all began! The genesis of an era! Bask in the glory of this day of days! The glorious inception that will henceforth be spoken of as pure molten legend for eons upon eons!” Then the descendants of those masses will say of our story “Woah. This is epic.” and then the same of their lineage also.

Rini eyed me with this ‘I know what you’re thinking and I’m very grumpy-wumpy about it’ type face. Whatever, she doesn’t actually know what I’m thinking—unless she does that is, considering that her crazy family developed those mind powers there’s bound to be some bonus secret weird thing about them.

Foreshadowing aside Rini was still giving me that look—arms crossed.

“You know you’re cuter when you’re drunk.” I said

Rini made a noise and waddled away.

Such a nice girl.

Oh whoops I should set the scene. Aikaterini, Noel, and I were on the edge of town double checking our things, in particular Noel was making sure the packs I bought weren’t going to fall apart, Rini was sulking or something, and I’ve been monologuing. To our sides and behind us are some dinky buildings and in front of us an even dinkier ‘road’.

By the way I got a tat off-screen, I wanted to take advantage of my proper kit at home while I still could and got a mana tattoo, now I can produce a dainty match-flame and close the tongs of the prosthetic. Beyond gutted that this is what I’m reduced to. Back in the glory days I could’ve reduced these depressing shacks to charcoal with naught but a sneeze.

Noel looked blankly at me; I think it was a signal. Rini had now returned to her pack and was fiddling with it, I sauntered over.”

"They’re fine. We’ll be ready soon.” Noel said.

I looked to the packs, they were organised relative to our strength, Noel had the largest of the packs since she said she could handle it; I guess she hits lots of metal with hammers or whatever but dang she must be pretty strong. I used to use magic for everything and never built up any muscle so my pack comparatively light, then naturally Rini’s is the lightest since she’s all adorable and tiny.

Rini was once again giving me a look, maybe she really could read minds...

Actually you can read minds can’t you dear reader! maybe you’re secretly Rini! wouldn’t that be a cool twist! ...or maybe not. I’m not much of a writer, which is why there’ll be scribes to create a record of this legendary adventure!

“Can you really carry all that? I’m sure I could carry more in my pack.” Rini had a concerned look.

“I can handle it but I appreciate your concern Aikaterini.” Noel replied.

Oh they’re getting along how lovely~

I pulled a store-bought map of the region out of my bag, held it for the pair to see, and pointed as I talked.

“Right so to recap here are our stops: there'll be two minor settlements: Grungevista then Washste, next is Bitterwall which is a city, then The Capital. Between those stops we’ll have to rest in our tents, we may also run into settlements not on the map or random huts where we can ask nicely to stay (scab a snooze).”

I’d also drawn copies of the map for both Rini and Noel. I put the map back in my bag and continued: "We have food packed but most will need to be hunted, bought or foraged or stolen along the way, like I said the first stop is Grungevista, it’s apparently a dump but so’s here so whatever. I was also told there’s a cool cliff in town, if there’s time maybe we can see the cool cliff.”

“We don’t need to see the cool cliff.” Noel said.

“Fine fine. I bet the cool cliff isn’t even that cool anyway.” I said.

“...”

“It would be very convenient to have horses.” Aikaterini said.

“Yes well, unfortunately we didn’t have the budget and no-one breeds horses here anyway, I doubt a place called ‘Grungevista’ will have horses either, maybe they’ll have giant cockroaches we can ride _hehe”

Aikaterini flinched. “^aa! I’d rather walk.”

With that we headed out for real.

Aaaaaaaaah... It won’t be long now before I have my powers back, those glory days will be reborn! vengeance will be mine!!

...Hopefully I can get over my break-up too.