(no subject)
And so I start another long story that will never, ever be finished. Ever.
Slayers Quest: another generically named episode in the Epic Adventures of Lina Inverse And Company
by me
Summary: Dynast Grausherra is stirring in the North. And we all know what Lina finds herself doing when the Mazoku Lords get funky with it.
Chapter 0: Nothing Much Happens, except Throttling and Eating Food
Summary: In which Lina eats food and finds a quest with the questionable help of an enigmatic demon.
Pairings: Only the obvious ones.
Warnings: Um ... breakage of the Fourth Wall?
When starting a story, one should probably start at the beginning. Unless one is starting in the middle - but it’s very rare to start any story at the end. So, let’s go to the beginning, shall we?
The Law of Chaos suggests that anything can cause, well, anything. So once upon a time, somewhere - maybe in Texas - a butterfly beat its wings and it caused a catastrophic storm in -
No, wait, that’s a tangent, not a beginning. The beginning would be when another butterfly, this one most definitely not in Texas - in fact, it would be safe to say this butterfly is a metaphorical one - beat its wings and in a universe not so very far away, the Lord of Nightmares Was. Like most Gods, the Lord of Nightmares can simply Be, but instead L-sama Is Chaos. And when She Became, She Created a Chaotic World in Her Image, consisting of -
“WAIT! Wait wait wait!”
What is it? The Narration is busy telling a story.
“Don’t you think this is, well … TOO much beginning? Shouldn’t we skip forward a few thousand years, to the good part?”
What do you mean?
“The part where I come in, of course!”
Oh. Yes.
So, Lord of Nightmares, blah blah blah, yadda yadda, there were a few wars between the Dragons and the Demons, and then, eventually-
There was Lina Inverse.
* * *
The tales of Lina Inverse are many and varied, at least in her universe. In another one (again, not very far away), they are contained in eight novels, several comic books, and three box sets of DVDs you can theoretically purchase at your local Best Buy. But back to Lina’s universe.
The tales of Lina Inverse were many - maybe not so varied, actually. There were a few that told of her valiant defiance against a piece Shabranigdo, the Demon Lord; others memorialized her fight with Lord Darkstar. (Those tales were usually greeted with disbelief. “Wait, I thought there were only five demon thingies, and I don’t think Dark Whatsit was one of them! And what in the Lord’s name would inspire Her to create more than one world? Isn’t one enough!?”) But most of the stories were more towards the … negative side, shall we say.
After all, one does not get the name ‘Enemy of All Who Live’ by sitting around eating Doritos.
However, Lina was doing exactly that at the moment. She was also eating steak, roast beef, a spinach salad, working her way through a pitcher of cider, and fighting Gourry Gabriev for the last bread roll.
“It’s mine, darn it!” was her intelligent argument explaining why she, in fact, should get the last of the rolls instead of her sideki-bodyguard-cum-companion-in-arms.
“Mm am tmnore ‘n me,” Gourry stipulated with his mouth full.
“I grabbed it first!” Lina shot back. Fortunately for the restaurant-slash-inn, the bun couldn’t stand up to the argument and simply tore in half. Both Lina and Gourry stared, shrugged, then downed their respective pieces and kept going at it.
At this point Zelgadiss Greywars, human-turned-chimera and occasional additional companion on Lina and Gourry’s Epic Adventures (the rejected name for the Slayers series, for those curious), would usually ignore them and sip his coffee, and Amelia Wil Tesla Sailoon, Princess of Sailoon and self-declared Champion of Justice, might make a speech about Fairness, but as neither were present, nothing of the sort happened. Yes sirree, it was back to just Lina and Gourry, Gourry and Lina. The original two, back to their bandit-looting, random-traveling, over-eating ways.
This was Lina’s modus operandi when not off saving the world from certain destruction. Fortunately for the readers, an even-more-occasional traveler was about to make an appearance, saving everyone from the stream of hyphenated words.
“Ah. I thought I might find you here, Lina. Some things just never change, do they?”
This traveler did not make the usual sort of appearance, which is to walk through the front door. Rather, he simply appeared in the seat directly across from Lina, smiling. A startled waitress dropped four plates full of food, got yelled at by her manager, and the resulting delay meant that four people walked out on their bill in a fury and came home to seethe to family members, who would spread the word that the inn had incredibly slow service and eventually it would go out of business as a result of bad word-of-mouth.
All in a day’s work, for this traveler.
“Not now, Xelloss, I’m eating,” Lina said, and kept doing so.
“Hi, Fellas,” Gourry said with his mouth full, waving. “Long fime no fee!”
Xelloss simply smiled. He did that a lot. In fact, in all the time Lina had known him, she had only seen his mouth downturned six times, three of those times when being insulted by a certain Gold Dragon who shall not be appearing in this story. (A baby dragon was keeping her busy. She was doing remarkably well with motherhood, actually, just in case anyone was wondering.) Once, while Amelia was singing happy songs in his ear at a decibel level reserved for calling the final words of powerful spells.
The other two times were when Xelloss was having his essence ripped apart by Gaav the Demon-Dragon King, which is generally a good reason to not smile.
Xelloss was not an ordinary traveler by any means, mostly because he was a member of the Demon race. On top of that, he was a very powerful member of the Demon race, namely the Priest-General of the Beastlord Zellas-Metallium. His presence rarely meant anything good.
“I’m hurt,” Xelloss told the Narrator. “I’ve helped Good out several times! Why, in the last official Slayers story, I helped take down a Dark Lord from another realm of existence!”
Okay, so Xelloss’ presence rarely meant anything orderly, which is another matter entirely.
Most people who knew what Xelloss was tended to cower in terror of him and take his suggestions with an air of fearful respect. Lina and Gourry were exceptions. Lina, because she was one of the few beings more powerful than he. Gourry, because he was too stupid to know better.
While the Narration finished clearing up the matter of Xelloss’ existence in a long-winded manner, Lina finally cleared her plate and chugged the last of her cider. Wiping her mouth on the back of her glove, she leaned over the table with one fist down -
And gave a long, satisfied burp. “That was some good chow,” she announced. Gourry slumped back in his own chair with a happy sigh, crumpling the bag of Doritos between his hands.
“Now, what brings you here, Xelloss?” Lina asked, down to business. “It can’t be anything good.”
The last few months since Darkstar had been banished back to his realm and Valgaav had been reborn as a baby dragon had been pretty average. For Lina, average was blowing up bandits and stealing all their loot. She was a Robin Hood of sorts - the sort that kept all the booty for herself. Fact of the matter was, this was growing boring for her. She wasn’t sure about Gourry, who seemed pretty satisfied with most everything they did, but she was starting to miss having adventures. Even a good lore or two, a treasure map, or some lost spells would spice up life a bit, but she hadn’t encountered anything of the sort while she traveled the world blowing up bandits. Amelia had gone back to the palace in Sailoon to do … princess-y things, and Zelgadiss had decided to travel alone in his endless search for a cure, and Filia was running a shop and taking care of the egg that would be Valgaav, so it was just Gourry and her again, like in the old days.
On the other hand, not saving the world (or coming to the edge of destroying it) was refreshing in its own right, so she was of two minds regarding the sudden appearance of the self-named Trickster Priest.
Xelloss kept right on smiling, but he pressed his hand to his chest in mock-horror. “Why, Lina, I’m hurt! Just because I’m a member of the race that wishes to return all the world to pure Chaos doesn’t mean that I’m up to no good!”
It should be noted here that the original word for ‘Demon’ is ‘Mazoku’, which, when translated, means ‘Race of Evil’. In case it wasn’t obvious enough.
“On the contrary, I’m here because I have something that I think might prove interesting,” Xelloss continued. He reached under his cloak and pulled out a piece of parchment, which he then placed on the table between himself and Lina.
Lina eyed the parchment for a moment, but it didn’t seem as though it was going to jump up and bite her. So she snatched it up and unrolled it, frowning as Gourry leaned forward again in his chair, picking his teeth.
“Woah! It’s a map!” Gourry observed, stating the obvious.
It was, in fact, a map. The map included all of the known world, which by itself wouldn’t have been terribly noteworthy. The known world wasn’t all that big, honestly, most of it located on the continent and surrounding islands upon which Sailoon was built, but this map was, in fact, special. For one thing, there were no labels on it whatsoever - it was simply an inked mass of squiggly lines, with bumpy lines to indicate mountains, and wavy lines to indicate water. But the other reason it was special was-
“Has this thing been enchanted?” Lina asked. “’Cause it seems like it’s been enchanted. Kind of feels like it.”
Xelloss’ smile became a bit wider. “Why yes, I suspected the exact same thing myself! You’re so smart. I knew you’d catch on to that bit right away. But ignore the enchantment, and direct your attention to the bottom half of the map, please.”
“…” Lina glanced at Xelloss over the edge of the map and proceeded to do so. And then, it became immediately obvious what Xelloss was talking about. “What the … there’s more to the map?”
Indeed, at the bottom of the map there were two clear indicators the map had been cut off. The first, and more obvious one, was that the lovingly inked border around the map did not frame the bottom half of said map. The other, less obvious sign was that there was a piece of unlabeled land that jutted up from said half.
“Very good!” Xelloss praised. “And-“
“Hey, Lina,” Gourry said, “I thought ‘South’ pointed down?”
“Of course South points down,” Lina started, rolling her eyes, when she realized what Gourry was getting at. She was holding the map upside-down. Swiftly turning the map in her hands and depending on the parchment between herself and Xelloss to keep her blush hidden, she raised an eyebrow at the priest. “Okay, so it’s a torn map with uncharted territory on it. It just means some mapmaker got creative and bored when he had extra parch-wait. Wait a minute.”
Xelloss didn’t say a word. He didn’t really have to.
“Where did you get this map!?” Lina demanded as things clicked into place in her mind.
“My lips are sealed on that front, I’m afraid,” Xelloss informed her.
“I’ve got to know,” Lina hissed, rolling the map back into a tight scroll. “A map like this can’t exist. I mean, who could possibly chart the Northern Realms!?”
“I’m not entirely clear on that myself,” Xelloss helpfully supplied.
The Northern Realms, as Lina delicately put it, were incredibly inhospitable to human life. For one thing, it was incredibly cold up there, and rumored to be covered with dangerous mountains and surrounded by unpredictable snowstorms.
For another, it was the home of Dynast Grausherra, one of the demon-kings created by Shabranigdo. He didn’t generally encourage visitors.
Lina wasn’t entirely clear on the whole mapmaking business, but she was pretty sure that it involved at least seeing the land in question. And seeing that much of the North was largely impossible until two years ago, when Lina and her cohorts had (accidentally) shattered the barrier the Demon Lords had set up between the Known World and their lands. Someone had worked very fast, or very very long ago. The parchment didn’t look that old, but on the other hand, it was enchanted …
“But back to the enchantment,” Xelloss said nonchalantly, as if charting the North was no big deal, “I believe that when the map was whole it was enchanted to show locations. All I could discern was that it might have marked the locations of various lost Guilds of Magic, massively powerful spellbooks that have been lost to time …”
Suddenly Lina was very curious.
“Where’s the rest of the map?” she demanded.
“Now, now. Knowledge for knowledge’s sake is reserved for wizards and uni-ack!”
By all rights, there was no reason Xelloss should have been able to be strangled by Lina Inverse, although she was a powerful sorceress. But choked he was as she practically flew over the table and tackled him to the ground. Other patrons of the inn looked startled and scooted back in their chairs.
Gourry stood up. “Lina-“ he started in a questioning tone.
“Shut up, Gourry. You were saying?” Lina asked.
“Something about universities,” Xelloss offered in an entirely too cheerful, choked voice.
“Did he just say Lina? As in, Lina Inverse? Enemy of All Who Live?” asked an obligatory NPC character.
“Run! She’s gonna blow!” someone else suggested, and there was a massive exodus from the inn, resulting in seven unpaid checks. The waitress who had been yelled at for dropping food openly wept as she went approximately 130 gold into debt at her own job.
“I’ll bet you have the rest of the map on you!” Still sitting on Xelloss, Lina rifled through the sack he carried at his side. Xelloss allowed this too, although he did put up a token protest when she pocketed his money pouch. (That money had been hard-earned, mostly by cheating people out of it. All in good fun, you know.) But alas, the rest of the map was not to be found.
“So where’d you hide it?” she demanded.
“Nowhere,” Xelloss answered. “Which is to say, I didn’t hide it. I have never, thus far, had the rest of the map in my possession.”
“Lina, maybe you should get off of him. I mean, you’re kind of heavy and he’s not that big. Even if he is a Demon. Doesn’t everyone have to br-ow!”
Gourry shut up. Lina listened, though, and reluctantly got off Xelloss. Xelloss got to his feet, dusted himself off for show, and resumed sitting as if nothing had happened. “So where is it? Do you know?” Lina asked, folding her arms.
“Possibly. I have an inkling, in any case,” Xelloss answered. “Have you heard of the Mapmakers Guild of Tomorrow?”
“No. I don’t know much about mapmaking. Where is it?”
“Why, where all good quests start, in Sailoon,” Xelloss smiled. “Right here, in fact.” He unrolled the incomplete map (when had he gotten that?) and pointed to a spot on the Known World-Slash-Continent.
“… That’s not all that helpful,” Lina grumbled, taking the map from Xelloss’ hands. “I mean, this map doesn’t have any markings on it. How am I supposed to remember a random spot on a map that with no text that covers the whole Known World and m-“
“Um, Lina?” Gourry said, recovering from Lina’s earlier blow. “Xelloss is gone.”
And so he was.
tbc, or maybe not. depends on how I feel about it.
Now wasn't that fun? Go forth and get some sleep!
Slayers Quest: another generically named episode in the Epic Adventures of Lina Inverse And Company
by me
Summary: Dynast Grausherra is stirring in the North. And we all know what Lina finds herself doing when the Mazoku Lords get funky with it.
Chapter 0: Nothing Much Happens, except Throttling and Eating Food
Summary: In which Lina eats food and finds a quest with the questionable help of an enigmatic demon.
Pairings: Only the obvious ones.
Warnings: Um ... breakage of the Fourth Wall?
When starting a story, one should probably start at the beginning. Unless one is starting in the middle - but it’s very rare to start any story at the end. So, let’s go to the beginning, shall we?
The Law of Chaos suggests that anything can cause, well, anything. So once upon a time, somewhere - maybe in Texas - a butterfly beat its wings and it caused a catastrophic storm in -
No, wait, that’s a tangent, not a beginning. The beginning would be when another butterfly, this one most definitely not in Texas - in fact, it would be safe to say this butterfly is a metaphorical one - beat its wings and in a universe not so very far away, the Lord of Nightmares Was. Like most Gods, the Lord of Nightmares can simply Be, but instead L-sama Is Chaos. And when She Became, She Created a Chaotic World in Her Image, consisting of -
“WAIT! Wait wait wait!”
What is it? The Narration is busy telling a story.
“Don’t you think this is, well … TOO much beginning? Shouldn’t we skip forward a few thousand years, to the good part?”
What do you mean?
“The part where I come in, of course!”
Oh. Yes.
So, Lord of Nightmares, blah blah blah, yadda yadda, there were a few wars between the Dragons and the Demons, and then, eventually-
There was Lina Inverse.
* * *
The tales of Lina Inverse are many and varied, at least in her universe. In another one (again, not very far away), they are contained in eight novels, several comic books, and three box sets of DVDs you can theoretically purchase at your local Best Buy. But back to Lina’s universe.
The tales of Lina Inverse were many - maybe not so varied, actually. There were a few that told of her valiant defiance against a piece Shabranigdo, the Demon Lord; others memorialized her fight with Lord Darkstar. (Those tales were usually greeted with disbelief. “Wait, I thought there were only five demon thingies, and I don’t think Dark Whatsit was one of them! And what in the Lord’s name would inspire Her to create more than one world? Isn’t one enough!?”) But most of the stories were more towards the … negative side, shall we say.
After all, one does not get the name ‘Enemy of All Who Live’ by sitting around eating Doritos.
However, Lina was doing exactly that at the moment. She was also eating steak, roast beef, a spinach salad, working her way through a pitcher of cider, and fighting Gourry Gabriev for the last bread roll.
“It’s mine, darn it!” was her intelligent argument explaining why she, in fact, should get the last of the rolls instead of her sideki-bodyguard-cum-companion-in-arms.
“Mm am tmnore ‘n me,” Gourry stipulated with his mouth full.
“I grabbed it first!” Lina shot back. Fortunately for the restaurant-slash-inn, the bun couldn’t stand up to the argument and simply tore in half. Both Lina and Gourry stared, shrugged, then downed their respective pieces and kept going at it.
At this point Zelgadiss Greywars, human-turned-chimera and occasional additional companion on Lina and Gourry’s Epic Adventures (the rejected name for the Slayers series, for those curious), would usually ignore them and sip his coffee, and Amelia Wil Tesla Sailoon, Princess of Sailoon and self-declared Champion of Justice, might make a speech about Fairness, but as neither were present, nothing of the sort happened. Yes sirree, it was back to just Lina and Gourry, Gourry and Lina. The original two, back to their bandit-looting, random-traveling, over-eating ways.
This was Lina’s modus operandi when not off saving the world from certain destruction. Fortunately for the readers, an even-more-occasional traveler was about to make an appearance, saving everyone from the stream of hyphenated words.
“Ah. I thought I might find you here, Lina. Some things just never change, do they?”
This traveler did not make the usual sort of appearance, which is to walk through the front door. Rather, he simply appeared in the seat directly across from Lina, smiling. A startled waitress dropped four plates full of food, got yelled at by her manager, and the resulting delay meant that four people walked out on their bill in a fury and came home to seethe to family members, who would spread the word that the inn had incredibly slow service and eventually it would go out of business as a result of bad word-of-mouth.
All in a day’s work, for this traveler.
“Not now, Xelloss, I’m eating,” Lina said, and kept doing so.
“Hi, Fellas,” Gourry said with his mouth full, waving. “Long fime no fee!”
Xelloss simply smiled. He did that a lot. In fact, in all the time Lina had known him, she had only seen his mouth downturned six times, three of those times when being insulted by a certain Gold Dragon who shall not be appearing in this story. (A baby dragon was keeping her busy. She was doing remarkably well with motherhood, actually, just in case anyone was wondering.) Once, while Amelia was singing happy songs in his ear at a decibel level reserved for calling the final words of powerful spells.
The other two times were when Xelloss was having his essence ripped apart by Gaav the Demon-Dragon King, which is generally a good reason to not smile.
Xelloss was not an ordinary traveler by any means, mostly because he was a member of the Demon race. On top of that, he was a very powerful member of the Demon race, namely the Priest-General of the Beastlord Zellas-Metallium. His presence rarely meant anything good.
“I’m hurt,” Xelloss told the Narrator. “I’ve helped Good out several times! Why, in the last official Slayers story, I helped take down a Dark Lord from another realm of existence!”
Okay, so Xelloss’ presence rarely meant anything orderly, which is another matter entirely.
Most people who knew what Xelloss was tended to cower in terror of him and take his suggestions with an air of fearful respect. Lina and Gourry were exceptions. Lina, because she was one of the few beings more powerful than he. Gourry, because he was too stupid to know better.
While the Narration finished clearing up the matter of Xelloss’ existence in a long-winded manner, Lina finally cleared her plate and chugged the last of her cider. Wiping her mouth on the back of her glove, she leaned over the table with one fist down -
And gave a long, satisfied burp. “That was some good chow,” she announced. Gourry slumped back in his own chair with a happy sigh, crumpling the bag of Doritos between his hands.
“Now, what brings you here, Xelloss?” Lina asked, down to business. “It can’t be anything good.”
The last few months since Darkstar had been banished back to his realm and Valgaav had been reborn as a baby dragon had been pretty average. For Lina, average was blowing up bandits and stealing all their loot. She was a Robin Hood of sorts - the sort that kept all the booty for herself. Fact of the matter was, this was growing boring for her. She wasn’t sure about Gourry, who seemed pretty satisfied with most everything they did, but she was starting to miss having adventures. Even a good lore or two, a treasure map, or some lost spells would spice up life a bit, but she hadn’t encountered anything of the sort while she traveled the world blowing up bandits. Amelia had gone back to the palace in Sailoon to do … princess-y things, and Zelgadiss had decided to travel alone in his endless search for a cure, and Filia was running a shop and taking care of the egg that would be Valgaav, so it was just Gourry and her again, like in the old days.
On the other hand, not saving the world (or coming to the edge of destroying it) was refreshing in its own right, so she was of two minds regarding the sudden appearance of the self-named Trickster Priest.
Xelloss kept right on smiling, but he pressed his hand to his chest in mock-horror. “Why, Lina, I’m hurt! Just because I’m a member of the race that wishes to return all the world to pure Chaos doesn’t mean that I’m up to no good!”
It should be noted here that the original word for ‘Demon’ is ‘Mazoku’, which, when translated, means ‘Race of Evil’. In case it wasn’t obvious enough.
“On the contrary, I’m here because I have something that I think might prove interesting,” Xelloss continued. He reached under his cloak and pulled out a piece of parchment, which he then placed on the table between himself and Lina.
Lina eyed the parchment for a moment, but it didn’t seem as though it was going to jump up and bite her. So she snatched it up and unrolled it, frowning as Gourry leaned forward again in his chair, picking his teeth.
“Woah! It’s a map!” Gourry observed, stating the obvious.
It was, in fact, a map. The map included all of the known world, which by itself wouldn’t have been terribly noteworthy. The known world wasn’t all that big, honestly, most of it located on the continent and surrounding islands upon which Sailoon was built, but this map was, in fact, special. For one thing, there were no labels on it whatsoever - it was simply an inked mass of squiggly lines, with bumpy lines to indicate mountains, and wavy lines to indicate water. But the other reason it was special was-
“Has this thing been enchanted?” Lina asked. “’Cause it seems like it’s been enchanted. Kind of feels like it.”
Xelloss’ smile became a bit wider. “Why yes, I suspected the exact same thing myself! You’re so smart. I knew you’d catch on to that bit right away. But ignore the enchantment, and direct your attention to the bottom half of the map, please.”
“…” Lina glanced at Xelloss over the edge of the map and proceeded to do so. And then, it became immediately obvious what Xelloss was talking about. “What the … there’s more to the map?”
Indeed, at the bottom of the map there were two clear indicators the map had been cut off. The first, and more obvious one, was that the lovingly inked border around the map did not frame the bottom half of said map. The other, less obvious sign was that there was a piece of unlabeled land that jutted up from said half.
“Very good!” Xelloss praised. “And-“
“Hey, Lina,” Gourry said, “I thought ‘South’ pointed down?”
“Of course South points down,” Lina started, rolling her eyes, when she realized what Gourry was getting at. She was holding the map upside-down. Swiftly turning the map in her hands and depending on the parchment between herself and Xelloss to keep her blush hidden, she raised an eyebrow at the priest. “Okay, so it’s a torn map with uncharted territory on it. It just means some mapmaker got creative and bored when he had extra parch-wait. Wait a minute.”
Xelloss didn’t say a word. He didn’t really have to.
“Where did you get this map!?” Lina demanded as things clicked into place in her mind.
“My lips are sealed on that front, I’m afraid,” Xelloss informed her.
“I’ve got to know,” Lina hissed, rolling the map back into a tight scroll. “A map like this can’t exist. I mean, who could possibly chart the Northern Realms!?”
“I’m not entirely clear on that myself,” Xelloss helpfully supplied.
The Northern Realms, as Lina delicately put it, were incredibly inhospitable to human life. For one thing, it was incredibly cold up there, and rumored to be covered with dangerous mountains and surrounded by unpredictable snowstorms.
For another, it was the home of Dynast Grausherra, one of the demon-kings created by Shabranigdo. He didn’t generally encourage visitors.
Lina wasn’t entirely clear on the whole mapmaking business, but she was pretty sure that it involved at least seeing the land in question. And seeing that much of the North was largely impossible until two years ago, when Lina and her cohorts had (accidentally) shattered the barrier the Demon Lords had set up between the Known World and their lands. Someone had worked very fast, or very very long ago. The parchment didn’t look that old, but on the other hand, it was enchanted …
“But back to the enchantment,” Xelloss said nonchalantly, as if charting the North was no big deal, “I believe that when the map was whole it was enchanted to show locations. All I could discern was that it might have marked the locations of various lost Guilds of Magic, massively powerful spellbooks that have been lost to time …”
Suddenly Lina was very curious.
“Where’s the rest of the map?” she demanded.
“Now, now. Knowledge for knowledge’s sake is reserved for wizards and uni-ack!”
By all rights, there was no reason Xelloss should have been able to be strangled by Lina Inverse, although she was a powerful sorceress. But choked he was as she practically flew over the table and tackled him to the ground. Other patrons of the inn looked startled and scooted back in their chairs.
Gourry stood up. “Lina-“ he started in a questioning tone.
“Shut up, Gourry. You were saying?” Lina asked.
“Something about universities,” Xelloss offered in an entirely too cheerful, choked voice.
“Did he just say Lina? As in, Lina Inverse? Enemy of All Who Live?” asked an obligatory NPC character.
“Run! She’s gonna blow!” someone else suggested, and there was a massive exodus from the inn, resulting in seven unpaid checks. The waitress who had been yelled at for dropping food openly wept as she went approximately 130 gold into debt at her own job.
“I’ll bet you have the rest of the map on you!” Still sitting on Xelloss, Lina rifled through the sack he carried at his side. Xelloss allowed this too, although he did put up a token protest when she pocketed his money pouch. (That money had been hard-earned, mostly by cheating people out of it. All in good fun, you know.) But alas, the rest of the map was not to be found.
“So where’d you hide it?” she demanded.
“Nowhere,” Xelloss answered. “Which is to say, I didn’t hide it. I have never, thus far, had the rest of the map in my possession.”
“Lina, maybe you should get off of him. I mean, you’re kind of heavy and he’s not that big. Even if he is a Demon. Doesn’t everyone have to br-ow!”
Gourry shut up. Lina listened, though, and reluctantly got off Xelloss. Xelloss got to his feet, dusted himself off for show, and resumed sitting as if nothing had happened. “So where is it? Do you know?” Lina asked, folding her arms.
“Possibly. I have an inkling, in any case,” Xelloss answered. “Have you heard of the Mapmakers Guild of Tomorrow?”
“No. I don’t know much about mapmaking. Where is it?”
“Why, where all good quests start, in Sailoon,” Xelloss smiled. “Right here, in fact.” He unrolled the incomplete map (when had he gotten that?) and pointed to a spot on the Known World-Slash-Continent.
“… That’s not all that helpful,” Lina grumbled, taking the map from Xelloss’ hands. “I mean, this map doesn’t have any markings on it. How am I supposed to remember a random spot on a map that with no text that covers the whole Known World and m-“
“Um, Lina?” Gourry said, recovering from Lina’s earlier blow. “Xelloss is gone.”
And so he was.
tbc, or maybe not. depends on how I feel about it.
Now wasn't that fun? Go forth and get some sleep!