//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6 
// Story: A Chronicle from a Time of Darkness 
// by PhycoKrusk 
//------------------------------//

	Opal Essence was an artist’s artist, skilled in painting and inking, competent in poetry and dance, and passing in the lute and zither. She was neither famous nor widely-known, but her skill was enough to have caught the attention of a few lesser nobles in Heavenspire. As such, her house was more than comfortable, a full half of it serving as her studio, and the rest more than spacious enough to permit a dedicated kitchen (small though it was) and sleeping quarters, with a well-appointed living area decorated with short tables, vases and ornamental jugs produced by other artists, and even rugs.

On the night that Windigo abducted Empress Philomena and appeared before the people of Taiyō-sen, the size of her house and the luxuries she had been able to afford were the furtherest things from her mind. With a creak of old hinges, Opal eased opened the lid of the trunk she kept in the corner of her sleeping quarters. The contents were unassuming; a simple pair of brown trousers and matching shirt, a green jacket, and a heavy, hooded cloak of dark leather. None of these things immediately interested her, and she dug into them, withdrawing a small, wooden box covered in lacquer and opening it.

Inside was a small figurine of a frog, carved from ivory, scratched in several places, worn in several more, and unpainted. A small, inconsequential trinket that one might give to a child to reassure them that they would return home from a long journey. That same figurine had been with Opal Essence when she first came to Taiyō-sen, many years ago. She hoped that whatever magic had allowed it to guide her there was still around to guide her back one more time.



Angel’s house was a priest’s house. A place for both peaceful living and quiet contemplation. It was not separated from the strife of the mortal world in the same way that the shrine was, but it was a place he could go to for a time to distance himself, however temporarily, from the troubles around him. It was a priest’s house; it was not a warrior’s house.

Angel stood in his vegetable garden, tossing aside one final shovelful of earth, and the shovel along with it. Buried there, away from his house of peaceful living and quiet contemplation, was a wooden trunk that had only survived many years of rain water and insects due to a sealing layer of beeswax. For the first time since he’d become the shrine priest of Taiyō-sen, Angel broke that seal and opened the lid of the trunk.

Inside, exactly where he’d left them, were a tough, leather jerkin studded with steel rivets, arm and shin guards, a dagger and, drawing most of Angel’s attention, a curved broadsword still in its scabbard. Reassuringly, none of the visible metal appeared to have rusted.

Angel looked at the sword for a few moments, and then asked the spirits for forgiveness before gathering everything in his arms and carrying it inside his house.



If asked, Tank would not have bee able to easily or accurately describe the inside of his tiny house. It held little more inside than a cook fire, some pots, and a futon that was used less often than he would admit. It was his workshop that he really lived in. It was in that workshop that he would often fall asleep, where he would eat his meals, where he would live his life. It was his workshop, and the precisely organized chaos contained within, that would have defined Tank for anyone who used a person’s home as a metric to gauge their character.

With a grunt, Tank hefted a chain over his shoulder and pulled hard, walking the length of his workshop while a long panel on the floor slid out of place. When it could slide no more, the tortoise stopped and took a moment to catch his breath, and then turned and looked down into the compartment that had been revealed.

His various failures were spread out before him, hidden away so only his successes were on display.

Devices and contraptions that didn’t work, or that didn’t work the way they were supposed to. Plans and blueprints that proved too complicated, expensive, or impractical to actually build. Pipe dreams that even the brightest minds of Animalia could not have hoped to build (not yet, Tank had told himself). And in the greatest number, his not-yet-famous fireworks that never worked the way they should have; some of them would only fly along the ground but never into the sky, others produced a fantastic explosion with hardly any colors or patterns, and still others- particularly his early experiments with exotic components- were simply unsafe in every possible sense of the word.

They were absolute failures as fireworks, but with the prospect of the end of the world in front of him, the wheels in his head started turning. In a matter of moments, he’d hopped down into the hidden compartment, and began to remove the few pieces that may have had some use after all.



The Earthwalker house was as much of a home as any of them could imagine it being. It was in that house that Granny Earthwalker had cooked the first meal she’d eaten when she came from the east. It was in that house that Winona had inked her first agreement to train horse for the Imperial Army. It was the house where Ryder had been born, and walked her first steps, and spoke her first words. It was a house so full of memories, that it seemed there was no room in it for secrets.

In the Earthwalker home, a small section of the floor in one corner had been removed, and from beneath the house in a small space cleared in its foundation, a bundle had been removed and spread out under the dim light of lanterns and cook fire; one of the last secrets the house had room for. Ryder and Granny Earthwalker looked at the articles with surprise and shock respectively, but Winona could only look at them with a mixture of disgust and determination.

“Mama? Is that-“ Ryder began before Winona cut her off.

“Yeah, hon. It is.”

Winona shut her eyes and heaved a high, resigned sigh. “After all these years, Ah never, ever thought…” She trailed off, and her thought went unfinished, pushed to the back of her mind. “Ryder? Ma? Could th’ two o’ ya, h-help me with this? Ah, Ah gotta help Mister Nightwatch an’ everyone save th’ Empress, an’ Ah think… Ah think Ah’m gonna need this.”

Any further words were cut off when Winona felt Ryder latch onto her arm. “Mama, don’t go!” the youngest Earthwalker pleaded, tears already spilling from her eyes. “If you go, then, then something’ bad’s gonna happen, an’ Ah’m never gonna see you again! Ah jus’ know it! Don’t go, mama! Please, don’t go!”

“Oh, Ryder!” Winona yelped out. She seized her daughter in the tightest embrace she could, unable to hold back her own tears. A moment later, Granny wrapped her arms around both her own daughter and granddaughter, and for several long seconds, the three of them sat on the floor, embracing and crying, until Winona was finally able to get herself under control. “Ah know it’s scary, hon,” she said, “But sometimes, there’re things in life that we got t’ do, even when we don’t wanna. This, this is something’ Ah got t’ do. But Ah’m gonna be okay. Ah’m gonna be okay, an’ Ah’m gonna come back home t’ ya, an’ then… an’ then Ah’m gonna tell ya all th’ things Ah never did. All th’ things Ah shoulda told ya a long time ago.”

Her words seemed, at least a bit, to help Ryder calm down herself. “Ya promise?” she asked with a sniffle, looking up at her mother with tears still in her eyes.

“Yes, hon. Ah promise.”

Winona hoped, and silently prayed to the spirits that resided within Taiyō-sen, that she would be able to keep that promise.



Gummy’s house was the furthest thing from his mind on the night that Windigo abducted Empress Philomena and appeared before the people of Taiyō-sen. In truth, his house was often far from his thoughts, as he occupied himself almost exclusive with his stand in the market, moved temporarily to the square in front of the pavilion, and with small parties and gatherings he held for the benefit and enjoyment of others. There were more than a few people in Taiyō-sen who wondered if the alligator even had a house; they certainly never seen him returning to one after a day of work.

Accordingly, Gummy did not have much to do to prepare himself for the journey ahead. But there was still so much to do. He stood at his stand in the market, pen in hand, ink pot at the ready, and two short stacks of paper in front of him. The stack to his right only held blank sheets, but the left was growing as he wrote out, at lightning speed, a complete accounting of all his wares, instructions on how to operate his equipment, recipes, important dates, upcoming events, and most importantly of all, step-by-step-by-step directions to maximize enjoyment at any social gathering.

The front most page in the left stack held only the title, ‘Just in case,’ although it didn’t really matter. He’d have plenty of opportunity to clear everything away, before anyone got worried, once they’d saved the Empress.

Probably.



Nearly one hour had passed by the time Owlowiscious finally made his way in silence down the road toward the farms. Peewee was with him, as was Lantier and a small detachment of soldiers; the rest had dispersed to protect the inn, the residences in Taiyō-sen proper, and the outskirts of the farms. These few were the least experienced under Lantier’s commander, and he felt they would benefit most by being close to their commander.

Looking ahead, he could see the traveling companions he had been so reluctant to bring, waiting for him a short distance from the Earthwalker house. Gummy caught his eye first, having not changed his clothes in the slightest. The large pack he wore on his back did not struck the Demon Queller as being in any way suitable for danger; if the presence of a lantern (at that moment lit and in use) and skillet hanging from it did not give that impression, the presence of what he was certain was a sleeping bag certainly would have. All the same, Owlowiscious could not bring himself to be surprised in the least. The alligator at least had a few knives in scabbards attached to his pack, even if they looked like they were meant for cooking rather than fighting.

Opal, at least, he changed into trousers and a jacket, and even had a leather traveling cloak on her shoulders. She did not seem to have brought much else, and the only weapon she had looked to be a dagger (although if she was, as she implied, a Void Shaper, there may have been some magic she could rely upon instead, Perhaps she even knew a bit of sorcery, much as he doubted it). And, perhaps as expected, she still managed to be beautiful, even from a distance.

Tank simply looked outlandish. He’d changed back into plain, heavy trousers and a jacket, both brown, but was also wearing leather covers on his thighs and forearms. Hardly thick or heavy enough to afford and protection from an arrow or blade, but they were probably the closest thing to armor he had. What truly gave him an outlandish look, however, was the fact that the pack he was wearing, as well as much of his belt and even a bandolier that looked to be covered in miniature fireworks, or small, metal spheres with fuses attached. Each of his thumbs and index fingers was adorned with a ring that, under the light of Gummy’s lantern, looked to be covered in some kind of abrasive material.

It was Angel, however, that was the most incongruent to Owlowiscious’ eyes. That he’d changed into dark blue trousers and boots was not terribly jarring. Even the leather arm and shin guards and studded leather jerkin, although unexpected, weren’t shocking. What was incongruent, for a man of peace, was the western-style broadsword hanging from his belt. It was certainly not the sort of thing that a priest would be able to procure on short notice.

“Your old equipment?” Owlowiscious asked when they reached the group. “I’d have thought those would’ve been the first things you parted with on your journey to becoming a priest."

“I admit I’m a bit ashamed by it, but I never could bring myself to get rid of them. ‘Just in case,’ I told myself,” Angel replied. He fidgeted with his jerkin suddenly, trying to pull some of the leather under his arms away from his chest. “The fit's a bit tighter than I remember, though.”

“It’s too bad there’s no time to see an armorer,” Owlowiscious remarked. “Come on, we’ll meet in front of Winona’s house. The four of you showed on time, and I find I have no reason to expect her not to.”

With no small degree of annoyance that there really was no way to talk them out of going with him, Owlowiscious continued down the road with everyone in tow. His annoyance morphed into surprise, as he expected everyone felt, when he turned off the road to begin moving towards the lamp-lit front door of Winona’s house.

Finding six horses saddled and waiting for them was no surprise; it was not a secret that the Earthwalkers made their living in part by training horses. That Ryder, who looked like she’d been crying, was helping with their tack, however reluctantly, was as normal as any of them could have hoped for. What did catch them by surprise, however, was the stone-faced Winona that was cinching the saddle on one of them, or at least what she wore. She’d changed back into her usual trousers and shirt, or so they would assume, but made the outfit an eclectic mess with additions. Thinly hammered steel guards and greaves, painted sea blue and trimmed in black, covered her arms, shoulders, thighs, and shins, strapped on top of heavy, black cloth leggings and matching jacket. Her chest was covered with a steel breastplate painted to match the guards. Somehow, some way, Winona Earthwalker, a peasant farmer, had acquired a nearly complete suit of soldier’s armor, even if it didn’t fit her quite as snugly as it should have and the color clashed with her clothes; it was clear that it was not ever sized or intended for her.

What stood out most among all of this was the sword that hung at her hip, suspended from a thick, leather belt.

Collectively, the who group stopped to try and comprehend what they were seeing. Peewee reacted the quickest, hurrying over and wrapping Ryder in a strong embrace. That set her crying again, and it was all the phoenix could do to guide her away from the horses and back towards the house as the others resumed their approach. As Ryder was led away, Winona tightly gripped the saddle she was working on and rested her head against the horse’s flank. Her deep, measured breaths made it clear she was trying hard not to cry herself.

Opal and Angel were the next to break away and approach, the former taking Winona into her own embrace and the latter laying a comforting hand on her shoulder. Between the two of them, Winona seemed finally able to steady herself. Only then did the rest approach, although the soldiers dispersed around them to meet with other patrols.

“You know how to use that?” Owlowiscious asked, gesturing to the sword at Winona’s hip. She looked at him for a moment, Opal disengaging their embrace as she did, and then gave a firm nod.

“Well as Ah can.”

“Good. And the horses?"

It worked. Winona sucked in a hard breath, and was fine for the moment, now that she had a distraction. “It ain’t quite half a ri from here t’ th’ Dark Wood, if we jus’ go in a straight line an’ ferget th’ roads,” she said. “But Ah figure we maybe need all th’ time we can git. Th’ horses won’t go in, but they can find their way back here once we get there.”

“That’s a good idea, Winona,” Owlowiscious replied. He approached the horse Winona had just finished tacking with his wing outstretched. It snorted when he touched its nose, but otherwise offered no protest. “We should get moving. The sooner we go, the sooner we’ll be back."

With another nod, Winona climbed up into the saddle, an action mimicked by everyone else, although Tank’s nickered in annoyance with how heavy he was. Being mounted bolstered their courage a bit, if not by very much. “You know the fastest way from here to the entrance?” Owlowiscious asked.

“Course Ah do.”

“Then lead on. There’s no telling how much time we might have, or how long it’ll take us to navigate through Mei-Shinrin.”

Winona turned her steed towards the open fields of grass and cast a glance back towards her house. Ryder was sitting on the steps leading up to the porch, still looking miserable. Peewee was sitting with her, almost in the exact same way that Owlowiscious had sat with her two nights previous, with a consoling wing on one shoulder. Finally, Lantier was with them as well, hand on Ryder’s other shoulder as he offered quiet assurances.


Wrenching her gaze forward again, she urged her horse to walk, and then trot and then gallop. The othesr did the same, even if some of them felt certain their horses were only following Winona’s. In the distance, the foreboding tree line of the Dark Wood sat, barely visible under the light of the full moon, which seemed to shine just a bit brighter than before they started their journey.

They took what comfort they could from that bright moonlight, knowing that once they entered the forest, they might never see it again.