Life is what happens to us while we're making other plans - John Lennon

 

 

Chapter 1:  Scrolls of Sorrow

 

            The city was a bustle with activity, merchants trying to sell their wares, children running to and fro, the city guard on duty making their rounds, sorcerers and clerics going about doing tricks and minor healing for money.  In general it was your normal medieval city.  Well maybe not so normal as this was Sairoon the capital of the country of the same name.  It was known throughout the world as the mecca of white magic.  Well the world as far as the demon shield extended, outside of that Sairoon was only a memory, a fairy tale told to small children before they went to bed.  To the outside world the entire land mass under the shield did not exist anymore. 

            Sairoon however still stood, the entire city being shielded by a magic force field whenever an enemy attacked.  So it has been for generations, and for generations to come.  Since it has stood for so many centuries it has collected a mass of magical items, books and scrolls from all over the known world.  Most of these items were stored in the extensive catacombs under the city.  Over time and many clerical errors a lot of the filing systems that were devised to catalogue exactly what was in the catacombs was lost.  Because of politics and the sheer expense of sending a mass of librarians down into the catacombs to re-catalogue everything, it was determined that sealing off the entire structure would be cheaper and altogether safer.

            In just such a dimly lit chamber well under the bustling street above that a tiny torch burned gently illuminating the immediate area.  There was row upon row of shelves each one with a number on it.  On the shelves were various numbers of scrolls, books, wands, and various cursed items.

            Amidst the shelves a small figure moved to and fro.  In the dim light the figure shuffled through the scrolls and books on the shelf and then not seeming to find what it was looking for moved to the shelf below.  To it’s side were several scrolls, books and trinkets that had been pulled off the previous shelves and put aside to be looked at more carefully later. 

After about an hour of doing this the torch finally burnt itself out leaving complete darkness.  A soft sigh could be heard eminating from the figure’s last known position and then some rustling of cloth and then a faint glow.  Over several minutes the glow intensified until it lit about a quarter of the area that the torch had once illuminated.  In the dim light given off by the coin we can see that the figure is a girl in her early teens with reddish orange hair and equally reddish brown eyes.  She had a black headband and a long flowing cape with shoulder guards.

The young girl sighed again.

“Well I guess that’s all the treasure hunting I’ll be doing for today.”  She said a little dejected as she proceeded to gather up all her loot.  Just as she was shouldering her pack something caught her sight from the corner of her eye.  It was a small stuffed animal about a hand and a half high, the strange thing was that it looked like a yellow rat.  She shrugged and put it in her belt pouch.  Whatever it was it was cute and seemed cuddly so it shouldn’t be too dangerous. 

She walked back to a hole in the ceiling and started chanting some kind of spell.  Her body took on a slight glow as she started floating up through the hole.  After about 30 seconds she reached her destination a small cross chamber.  Letting her spell fade out she carefully made her way to the left and then up a small ladder.  At the top of the ladder there was a small room and a heavy iron door. Sliding back the bolt she carefully opened the door.  It gave a squeak in protest but offered little resistance.  Once on the other side of the door she chanted another spell and the deadbolt slid back into place.  Satisfied that the door was secure she slinked down the hallway and out a back entrance of the building.

 

“Raywing”  She shouted as soon as she thought that she was a safe distance away from the building. 

            As she flew through the air she chuckled a bit to herself.  What a haul, what a haul.  In the 6 hours she was down in the catacombs she had managed to pick up a few interesting books and scrolls.  Since she was down in the dark with only a few torches she didn’t really have time to actually check the spells, but she thought that she may have probably come away with at least a couple of new offensive and defensive spells maybe one or two white magic spells and if her luck held up maybe even a shape change spell.  Looking down on herself she is mildly disgusted at what she sees.   Here she is sweet sixteen in the body of a thirteen year old.  Hell who was she kidding Amelia was fourteen and she was stacked. 

            The sudden lack of concentration almost made her fall.  Struggling she pushed to right herself and continue on.  She continued making a mental inventory of her loot.  In the items category were a few non descript wands and rings, a complete set of weird amulets and bracelets and that yellow rat.  Speaking of said yellow rat it had taken her fancy so out of the blue that she’d totally forgotten to check the darned thing to see if it was cursed.  Thinking more of it, it had been down in those catacombs for so long and didn’t degrade one bit. 

            She flew down to street level and pulled the stuffed animal out of her hip pouch.  She put it on the ground and started her chant.  Sure enough it was cursed.  Sighing a bit she did the only thing that you can do with a cursed object of absolute evil… she gave it to the first small child she saw then flew away as fast as she could.

            Coming to her inn room she dropped her pack on the ground and flopped down on the nice soft bed.  Treasure hunting was all good and nice but it was tiring work and she needed all the beauty sleep she could get. 

“Lina supper!”  Gourry shouted into the room.

            Beauty couldn’t exist without sustenance as the completely flattened blond swordsman on the floor could attest to. 

 

tbc