Chapter 20 - A blade remade
The four of us walked back into High Aerie, hoping that Anima could use the Arcanite we'd gathered to fix the blade. Hopefully, he didn't need more than what we'd gathered.
We managed to get to the forge in what felt like record time. The pieces of the sword had been moved to the forge and lay waiting in the 'manual input' section, where Anima did work he felt needed a more personal touch. Upon seeing the stone still in my grasp, he gasped.
"Where...in the world did you get both Arcanite and the Masamune?" he asked with a bewildered tone.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I said before passing the stone over to the smith. "Is this enough to fix the blade?"
"Easily, yes," the smith said as he took the stone gently. "Just give me a day, and I should have the blade back in order."
The four of us nodded and left the smith to his work, seeking an inn to stay at while we waited. It was easy enough to secure a room for all of us, and the rest of the day passed uneventfully. I was about to suggest we go around and sightsee a little bit, but my heart wasn't in it. I was too worried about what might happen once the sword was reforged.
Bright and early the next morning, we woke up and gathered in the inn, waiting for it to be an appropriate hour before we went off to check on the smith. Once my pocketwatch read 11:00, we all stood up and made for the forge again.
Once we arrived, it was to the sound of nothing going on, which could only mean one thing. He'd finished. I knocked on the door and held my breath. The door slowly opened, to reveal Anima behind it with a grim expression.
"It's done," he said, standing to one side. The four of us entered to see the blade, whole once more, laying on the anvil to his forge. The thing seemed to glow and radiate some sort of power. I gently approached the blade with one hand extended before pausing and looking at Anima again. He nodded and gestured to the blade, and I picked it up gingerly.
The first thing I could tell was that it was far too heavy for me to wield properly. Broadswords weren't really my thing anyways. The second thing I felt was that tingle of power running down my arm once I picked it up. And the third thing I felt was a voice in my head. Two voices, actually.
He brought us here to be fixed, brother, and found the things Anima needed to fix us.
Yes, but he's not our proper owner, brother.
Can he...find our owner as well?
Maybe. We'll have to see.
I picked up the sheath for the blade that Anima had made and hung the thing off my belt for the time being. It would do until we returned to Gregory and presented him with the reforged Masamune. I turned to the smith and bowed my head in thanks for his hard work. "You have my thanks for fixing this," I said to him. "I will ensure that it gets to the one meant to use it."
"Just take care with that sword, alright?" the crystal stallion said. "It's no ordinary blade. Has a will of its own."
Ain't that the truth, I thought to myself as I remembered the fight that it took to get this blade. "You have my word that we'll take the utmost of care with this sword," I told the stallion before the four of us left him again.
The walk back to Gregory's was a long affair, it took us until the next day before we reached the village just near his place. It was easy enough to get another room before we went to see him. I'd rather see him when we were well-rested than on the bring of exhaustion.
Once the next day dawned, we were on our way to see our griffon friend. We had a sword to deliver, and a spirit to revitalize. Once more it was me, Copper, and Zehan who climbed up the rope ladder and visited Gregory, who was in the middle of maintaining his current sword when we arrived. "Ah, you return," he greeted us.
We didn't say anything, I just pulled the sword off from my belt and lay it before the Griffon. He gently tugged the blade loose of its sheathe and swung it around a few times, before returning it to the sheathe. "And you have repaired the sword," he said with a nod. "So you go to the Fiendlord's lair?"
"Yes," I said simply as I put the Hero Badge atop the sword. "But I'm not the one meant to wield it. I would take you with me, Gregory, if you thought you could."
The griffon stared at the pair of objects on his table before sighing. "Go to the village and wait for a day, then return. I need to...think about this."
We did as he asked, hoping, praying, that he would believe in himself again.
"Do you think he'll come around?" Copper asked as we made ourselves comfortable in our room again.
"His is the way of the warrior," Zehan said with a nod. "At this chance to strike down a great evil, it is likely he will join us on our path to stop this zebra."
Justice merely beeped, and I raised an eyebrow at him. Catching sight of my gesture, the robot elaborated. "The information in my memory banks no longer matches up with the path we are carving. We are, as you would say, off the map. I do not know if Gregory can defeat the Fiendlord...though I do possess information regarding his life. Specifically, a few notable facts come to the fore."
"Elaborate," I said. "The more information we posses, the more informed our guesses can be."
"Gregory trained under Cedric, the King's knight, at an early age. Around a year ago, Cedric departed on a quest to reclaim the Masamune and put an end to the Fiendlord."
"Well," I said as I lay back on my bed. "We can guess how that worked out. Cedric isn't here, the blade was broken, and the Fiendlord is still kicking. I'm willing to bet that Cedric wasn't up to the task."
"We are running the same experiment with only one changed variable," the robot pointed out. "What is the proof that Gregory will be any better than Cedric at stopping the Fiendlord?"
"Believe me," I said as I closed my eyes. "Cedric may have wielded the blade, but I feel it in my bones that Gregory is meant to be its true master."
When we next arrived at the forest, Gregory was waiting for us under his treehouse. He handed me the blade and badge, saying only one thing.
"Though we may fail, we should at least try. Let us proceed to the east, where the Fiendlord lurks."
The walk to where the zebra shamaness was said to make her lair was a long and silent affair. The rolling hills between the mountains of the kingdom of Griffonia eventually gave way to plains, which grew more and more soggy the further we walked. Eventually we reached a wall of mist that stopped our further progress.
"This is more than it appears," Zehan said as he poked it with a hoof. "Zebra magic runs through this, seeking to keep us out."
"The barrier of mist," Gregory said with a nod. "It keeps the dangerous out, while luring the foolish glory-seekers in, so the Fiendlord has an abundance of corpses at her disposal." He then turned to me and gingerly took the badge back from me. He affixed it to the strap running across his chest, before taking a deep breath and letting out a heavy sigh.
"Hold out the blade," he said, and I leveled the thing so the hilt was pointing towards him. Gregory backed up for a moment and looked down, obviously deep in thought. After a minute of this, he turned around and faced the wall again.
"My name is Gregory!" he bellowed. "The protector of the Queen! My hopes and dreams, those of my dear friend Cedric as well, and now the Masamune...it all comes to this."
He walked forward and gripped the blade, and I could see the thing flash as he did. "Henceforth, I swear I shall slay the Fiendlord and restore honor to those that have died by her hooves!"
Gregory pulled the blade free of its scabbard and held it up to the sky, letting it let off a beam of power to the heavens as the blade was wielded by its true master. Undeterred by the phenomena, the griffon dashed forward and slashed at the wall of mist with his glowing blade. The mists howled as if they were a wounded beast, before they started to thin and drift away.
Gregory flourished the blade and nodded, before taking the scabbard from me and unhooking his old blade from his back. Tossing it to the side, the griffon secured the Masamune to his back and led the charge into the den of the Fiendlord.
A charge we were quick to follow up on.
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That, and knowledge of the original game that tells him this is the best thing to do
Also, if the Fiendlord is a female zebra, does that mean the Schala analogue is going to be a male zebra?
Uh... Cedric went in alone. Gregory has some incredibly powerful allies AND an unbroken Masamune.
On top of that, they have the option of giving Gregory magic of his own, though why they haven't done so already is beyond me.
6549864
Maybe. In the original game a single family line was almost always involved as key friendly characters(Ayla's line) from 65 million b.c. all the way to that old man in the ruined dome. This is more difficult with a planet with so many different species though.
Now comes the time of legends, now comes the forging of a true hero. Stride forth Knight Gregory, for honor and justice! Any way, if memory serves, we already passed the Ayla stand in, so, we have an open slot that needs filling, but we aren't likely to see it filled.
6549934 Well, remember that this isn't a game for them. For us it's a few minutes to run to a gate and power up Frog, for them, it's several days travel back and forth; and they've already wasted a lot of time. PLUS they aren't keeping to the 3-member party system. Since it's 'real life', so why should they? xD
6551095 There are no time constraints, and giving their focus member a huge power up in order to vastly improve their chances of survival would be worth a few extra days.
6550991 Not quite.
Yeah, in the original, he cuts through the mountain instead of just a fog.
... Also he was cursed to look like a frog. So... Was mildly surprised he wasn't, in this.
6551147 Probably because since practically every single animal in Equestria is sapient most wouldn't even bat an eye at a sword wielding talking frog, so the joke would be lost...
6551118 But there /are/ time constraints. It doesn't work like it would in a game, for them—the world's not going to sit on pause if they don't show up. They don't know what the fiendlord zebra lady is gonna do if they delay. That's the whole point I'm getting at here. Our 'Crono''s adventure is mirroring the game he remembers playing to an extent, but this is now the real life version of it, for him. Certain gaming tropes are going to get subverted when the stakes are real.
Dude, keep the old sword, would you, two are better than one, even if your other is Legendary, if you break it, or there's some kind of curse that makes it useless, you have a back-up at least...
6551147
There is a curse. A minor one. One that we'll explore later. Much later.
It's quite important to a Griffon after all. Not so much the rest of them, seeing as they don't have wings...