Writer's Notes
first, I apologize for a sudden big ass delay (IT’S BEEN ALMOST 3 MONTHS HOLY SHIT)
second, I’m trying my best to update this lmao, the story’s still there
so uhhh, enjoy watching our boy rael going through shenanigans k bye
also I made a separate post for this chunk because I wrote some extra plot points to compensate the hiatus (it was supposed to be a short part, but I might as well pack the plot points bc the plot grew during hiatus)
this is pretty much written by my procrastination on school, it’s a really good motivator to write <3
- Yussef
I am back.
Following Rael’s first few training with Aurielle, we’re traveling to New Alalea next, to meet with Aurielle’s other student.
Now, let the tale resume.
Rael hesitated for a second, before continuing with his question, “Can I come with you?”
Aurielle broke into a smile for a second, before replying, “All right then, are you sure you’re coming with me?”
“I am.”
“All right, let’s go!”
With that said, Rael grabbed his go-to club and headed after Aurielle. Through the forest paths, they walked. Along the plains, they strolled. Across the bridges, they lept. In front of a large town entrance, they stopped.
The soft glow of the sun was still scattered in the sky, as the decorative golds reflected the town’s lights. From outside, they can even see a castle standing at the heart of the town. This town they arrived definitely smelled of Alaleans.
Entering inside the town, and heading towards the right — they passed through the market with some talks with the merchants, and through the stone-built houses with unfamiliar looks from the townspeople. Finally, they had arrived at the district with blue-roofed buildings. Beneath one of the structures with fighters and dummies, Aurielle led Rael towards it. After being few steps away from the structure, she stopped whilst shushing at Rael.
“This visit’s a surprise to that girl,” Aurielle whispered, as she gestured at a tiny girl kicking and blasting at the dummy.
With how quick she landed her attacks, and sending herself through the flow of motions, Rael gasped without any second thoughts. “Woah.”
“She’s a swift girl, you see,” Aurielle added and smiled, looking at her own student’s training.
Rael nodded, as the girl’s brown eyes noticed the two. “Yeah…”
After leaping and all, the girl landed on the ground as she turned back to wave at Aurielle, before picking up her cloak from the ground. “Miss Aurielle!”
“Good evening, Jean! How were your practices?”
“Doing pretty well, miss! And uh…” The dark-skinned dark-blonde-haired girl called Jean tilted to look at Rael. Her fists tightened as her arms lifted up a little. Aurielle could tell Rael’s height intimidated Jean, who’s way smaller than him and Aurielle. Because after all, she recalled the story of Jean’s scar across her face, from a man who’s much larger than her.
Rael didn’t really catch the signs of fear from the other girl, although Aurielle eased this awkward moment a little.
“Ah, here’s a new student I met today. His name is Rael Mills. He might look scary, but I assure you, he wouldn’t harm you.” As Aurielle introduced, Rael nodded at the last part. “And here’s Jeanelle. One of the students I recruited a few days ago.”
After introducing both students to each other, Aurielle placed her hands onto their shoulders. “Now, since both of you are my most recent students, our future tasks will be done in a pair. Do you mind working with him, Jean?”
Jean relaxed her stance, yet the unease was still there. “I… don’t. I don’t mind it.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah! I’m sure of it!” Jean pumped her fist as she looked back at Aurielle.
“And what about you, Rael?”
Rael nodded as a response, although he didn’t seem to think too much about this whole thing. “I don’t mind that.”
“Good! I’m planning to get him a room later, would you like to tag along with us?” Aurielle turned to ask Jean.
Jean nodded, as she put on her cloak with a soft smile. “Sure, miss Aurielle!”
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Later, the three would head to the inn building in the same district. Aurielle was arranging a room for Rael and pricing for both student’s rooms, Jean was avoiding eye contact with everyone else she met in this inn, and Rael was looking around inside this small yet unfamiliar inn. After getting a room, Aurielle sent both her students to their own rooms, bid a farewell to both of them as she had a meeting later, and told them to prepare themselves when she returns in the next three days.
After Aurielle left both of them, Rael looked outside of his room’s windows. As the sun went down, the lights from the other buildings lit up. As some people returned to their houses, some others went outside. But no matter where Rael looked out at, the market had closed, and the taverns were open.
He thought about grabbing some food from the inn and left the room. Then he asked Jean from the next room if she’s eaten any dinner, as he planned to grab some other food for her too. After a few awkward moments with Rael’s bluntness and Jean’s fear, he knew she hadn’t eaten.
Jean didn’t mention her food preference, so Rael had decided to pick whatever he’s craving — anything that would fill him, especially meat. After getting the food and getting few looks from people with the amount of food he grabbed, he went back to Jean’s room without even looking back.
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There’s one thing that might have or might have not made Jean more afraid of Rael — his persistence towards food, especially the one that convinced her to eat the meal he brought. Surprisingly, it didn’t end up in a loud arguing, as none of them would dare to bring unnecessary attention from everyone else inside the inn. They ended up eating inside Jean’s room, with their backs facing away from each other. Even if they don’t face each other, they knew both were enjoying their own foods at their own pace.
If you think Rael would be the one to wolf down the meal, you’re wrong. Out of the two, Jean was the one who wolfed down the meal first, and she waited for Rael to finish his meal with an awkward silence.
“Uh…”
Jean tried to initiate a question as Rael finished his meal.
“How did you end up with Aurielle?”
“Hmm… Some knight called the Exiled asked me to find her.”
“Huh, I see… Wait, the Exiled? He brought me to miss Aurielle too! Did you talk to him?”
As the Exiled is brought up, Jean frantically turned back to Rael.
“Hmm… I only asked him about where to find Aurielle, and that’s it.”
“Wait, it’s just that and nothing else?”
“Yeah, why are you asking?”
“Huh… Let’s say… I haven’t heard about him for a while.”
Rael nodded as a response, before continuing a bit about the Minotaur.
“Actually, I fought with a guy called the Minotaur a few days ago, that’s why the Exiled asked me to find Aurielle.”
“Oh, you’re that guy from the news…”
Jean looked up to Rael’s eyes, leaving a few seconds of awkward silence of Jean staring at Rael’s eyes. Rael didn’t seem to be nervous by the sudden eye contact though.
“Unusual color,” Jean uttered.
“I know. I’ve been told that.”
With Rael’s blunt response, Jean quickly looked away. “Uh- I’m sorry… Uh… Did Aurielle tell you about future plans?”
“The task she mentioned?”
“No, something further than that. Like unlocking your second magic.”
“Wait, hold up. Unlocking second magic?” Rael backed away a little as Jean brought that topic up.
As for Jean, she wasn’t exactly sure what startled him, so she gives a moment for Rael to calm down a bit. “So yeah, Aurielle planned to help me unlock my second magic. I think you’d have to unlock that too, considering how she dragged you along… Anyways, are you ok?”
“Yeah, I think.” Rael seemed to be a little stiffer as Jean brought that up. “I didn’t expect to head towards that path.”
“Not sure what you meant by that, but eh.”
“Wait, are you an Alalean?”
“Yeah… Hmm, maybe I should tell you this too, assuming you aren’t one of those people… I’m Jeanelle Arbor.”
“Alright, I was only asking since you might haven’t heard about this story about unlocking second magic…”
Rael leaned back to a chair while sitting on the floor, as he thought about something. Jean turned towards him, waiting for his story.
“So back in my village, I heard you really need to stay fully conscious and extremely focused throughout the whole process. Or else you some darker spirits control your next mind…”
“Spirits?”
“Yeah. My great grandfather was controlled by it when he unlocked his mind, and he killed a lot of people with its control afterward… My dad told me he’s still sealed inside our village’s forest until this day. So yeah, he has always warned us to stay fully focused if we unlock our magics, to avoid being taken over like that… But still…”
“Still?”
“Well… I still haven’t felt control over my magic. And during the time I unlocked my magic, I accidentally destroyed a hut. And now, I’m still practicing on how to make more controlled spells.”
“Wait, like… You accidentally blew up a hut?”
“Yeah. I thought there’d be magic circles to warn the attack, but nope. I don’t have any magic circles.”
“Hmm… No magic circles, huh.”
Jean stopped to think about something, as Rael thought of what to say next.
“Wait, are you the New Greeks by any chance? Those people don’t have magic circles so far, from what I’ve recalled.”
Rael’s expression turned a little bitter, as he heard New Greek mentioned. He then sighed. “Yeah, I got my blood from them. But I don’t think they wanted me back, and I don’t intend to return to them too.”
Jean stopped, as she knew she had stepped into something to not bring up. “I… I’m sorry for that question.”
“Eh, that’s fine. I wouldn’t blame you for that.”
Rael relaxed a bit as he noticed Jean being slightly stressed out by the sudden topic. He then looked at the dishes. “Well, I’m going to-”
“Don’t worry, I’m returning those dishes myself. You can stay here.” Jean picked up their dishes as Rael was about to reach one of them.
“Wait, really?”
“Yeah. You even brought the food here, I might as well return that favor.” Jean smiled, as she left the room.
After Jean returned from returning the dishes, they were still talking about the magic training inside Jean’s room. But this time, it went to the topics of different spells they’ve learned. At one point, they decided to leave the inn to try out some other spells inside the place they met for the first moment. And after that, they basically agreed to help each other train while waiting for Aurielle’s return. With Rael’s strength and Jean’s magic knowledge, they could learn something from each other.
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In the dead of the night, the Silent Tower’s meeting room was filled with Magic Council members and Aurielle herself.
“Alright, we got something big to take down.” Captain Levi, who was the man who greeted Rael after being injured by the Minotaur, placed papers of sketches down the desk, and started explaining about this whole meeting. As he prepared to draw his own explanations down on one of the papers.
“So here, we’ve got a new dark guild on the rise, and they’re gathering bandits and wizards from here, here, and here.”
Levi sketched out a large circle on the tundra area on the map, as he drew the lines from different map spots towards separate locations. “We’re planning to send people to investigate the tundra area, as I suspected that to be a big hotspot for the guild. But as for the other ones, they’re the reported tracks from what I’ve gathered from the scouts. They pretty much came from the ‘sudden criminal increase’ route, see?”
As Levi guided people along with his messy sketches, but still somewhat understandable. Two soldiers — Ace and Issac, the guys who met Rael during his journey to find Aurielle, and laid some images down on the table.
“This one is the wanted guild leader: Dacien. The latest reported sighting of him was at the Bronze Grasslands a week ago.”
Ace pointed at the image of a brown-haired man, the image was zoomed away, but it was definitely taken at the grasslands Issac mentioned.
“And around that area, we also found the rising criminal who came way from New Mount Olympus. She ended up getting her picture taken at the same place and time as Dacien’s.”
Ace then pointed at another image of a light brown-skinned girl, with long black hair, plus blue and brown eyes. She’s shown to be smiling confidently at the camera, contrasting with Dacien’s image. The image was written with the name ‘Kat’.
While Aurielle was listening to the meeting and looking at the images, both criminals they brought up first caught her attention — Dacien looked really familiar to her — and so does the other girl, but she looked awfully similar to Rael.
The meeting went on. As they’re planning a way to stop the rising, yet scattered guild. As for now, the members were planning to spread out into different areas.
“You guys go to this desert, and these guys go to the tundra area over there, and you guys go there, there, and there.”
As the jobs were spread out, everyone in this meeting room either chose the areas themself or was picked by the higher ranks. And at last, Aurielle decided to head towards the Bronze Grasslands.
She now had a quest for her students.
After that, the meeting room was still active with council members, and Aurielle glanced outside of the tower. Expecting a specific knight called the Exiled to wait for her outside behind the tower. She looked for him around since he wasn’t there. But finally, she noticed one thing on the ground.
A custom-made helmet, broken and lying on the ground. With the blood trailing away from it.
Her heart sunk, and stopped focusing on the meeting entirely. As she realized one thing — The Exiled was definitely attacked, and that helmet was definitely his.
Before we continue, I have a choice for every single one of you here.
- Sea
- Land
- Sky
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