¤ Starting from One

As they climbed up the first storey of the tower, Silver found herself explaining her Project once again. Ida looked very interested. ‘So how far have you got on the Project? I have never heard anything about this statue too.’

‘We are going along quite nicely. Ever since someone in El Nath passed us this journal that his grandfather wrote, we have gotten quite a lot of information. I haven’t read the journal to the end though, so there’s a lot that we still don’t know,’ said Silver. ‘One thing would be why we cannot speak the girl’s name.’

‘Really?’ Ida exclaimed. ‘I heard of this sort of stuff before. My master, Grendel, spoke of it once.’

‘Grendel? Your teacher was Grendel?’

‘Yes!’ Ida said, her soft voice swelling with pride. ‘Only the best mage in Victoria. When he agreed to take me in as apprentice, I was so happy.’

‘He’s my mentor at the Ellinia Library!’ Silver laughed. He had helped her extensively in her previous Project, guiding her to the scrolls of knowledge that she needed and helping her dispel the strange monsters that stormed out of the Summoning Sacks she gather. Though eccentric in nature, the old wizen man was indeed a powerful mage, and Silver knew he seldom took apprentices. No wonder Ida was so proud. ‘Oh wow, such a small world.’ Ida laughed too.

‘What did he tell you about it?’

‘Something about a spell that “bans the verbal articulation of a name, especially those who are not acquainted with the target”. He told me that such spells cannot be performed by any mortal mage.’

‘Sounds like Grendel alright.’ Silver said, smiling fondly, ‘Always using all those big words. You have quite a good memory, I’ll say.’

Ida blushed and murmured politely, casting her eyes downwards, ‘That’s the only thing I’m good at.’

Silver’s mood turned serious now. ‘Some fairy must really hate the girl to want her name to fade completely from human memory like this.’

‘Yeah.’ Jaysen nodded. ‘It is like, completely demolishing a plate after you finish eating the Unagi on it.’ He blinked at the cold glare and the bewildered stare that Silver and Ida gave him respectively. Ida broke the silence with a confused ‘Unagi?’

‘I will assume you are not being completely serious.’ Silver drawled.

‘My fair lady, I never am.’ Jaysen mimicked Silver’s dry tone. A dangerous glint appeared in her eyes. Before she could resort to more violent measures, he quickly turned to Ida. ‘Say, what are you doing here anyway?’

‘Ah, this dog in Orbis asked me to help him get some fishes to eat.’ Ida said.

‘Moppie?’ Jaysen frowned. ‘But I just fed him last week. Two hundred fishes!’

‘Yeah, well, he said he was hungry again…’

‘That fat glutton.’ Jaysen huffed. ‘Well, I guess we can help you gather some fish for him. How many do you need?’

‘Six hundred?’ Ida said reluctantly, then laughed as Jaysen pretended to faint.

‘I take back what I said. He isn’t a fat glutton. He’s three.’ Jaysen gave a grimace. ‘Come, lady Silver, let us march onward and aid this fair maiden in the gathering of fishes!’ He sprung away, with all the air of a Crusader taking on a Balrog. Silver only rolled her eyes, muttering something under her breathe that sounded suspiciously like ‘bloody show-off’.

‘Erm, I’m not sure. You guys don’t mind helping me?’ Ida said softly, an unsure look on her face. ‘I don’t want to waste your time and all.’

‘It’s okay. We’re passing through here anyway. Why don’t you join us? Since we are both Grendel’s pupils, I guess we ought to stick together.’ Silver looked carefully at Ida, puzzled at the worried look on her face. ‘What is wrong?’

Ida looked down again, embarrassed. ‘Well… I’m not powerful enough. I was supposed to learn a new skill last week, but Grendel said that I have not been training hard enough.’ Her face reddened. ‘I might just slow you down.’

Silver smiled in relief. ‘That’s not a problem. I thought you didn’t want to come with us because Jaysen there looks like an escaped inmate from the Niora Mental Institution. He is harmless. I can vouch for that. You only have to avoid him when he starts frothing at the mouth.’ She lowered her voice to a conspiring whisper at the last sentence.

Ida giggled shyly, more at ease now.

‘When you ladies are done plotting my tragic downfall, maybe you would like to help me? I am like, working my butt off here.’ Jaysen called from the platform below them.

‘I bet I can do better. Those are just aquatic birds shorter than your knees!’ Silver yelled back. Standing up, she unlimbered and strung her Olympus bow quickly. Turning to Ida, she assured her, ‘It really is okay. I need the shooting practice anyway.’

‘Is that a challenge, honourable opponent?’ Jaysen called again, amidst the protesting squeals of Jr. Pepes losing their fishes.

‘Sure, why not!’ With that, Silver joined Jaysen, Ida in tow.

‘Five hundred and ninety-eight, five hundred and ninety-nine… Six hundred!’ Half an hour later, the trio gathered next to the magic teleporting rock, Jaysen counting out their spoils. ’Finally!’

Silver deadpanned, ‘It would have taken much faster if you didn’t lose count at five hundred the last time.’

‘Um. It was my fault, really. It was me that distracted him.’ Ida spoke out hesitantly.

‘Don’t blame yourself, fair maiden. ‘Twas not your fault that the wretched lady Silver there left that stray fish out and made you slip and fall.’ Jaysen shot that barb at Silver as he tied up the knot on the sack.

‘Please, don’t argue over me.’ Ida said worriedly, her hands fluttering in anxiety as she tried to stop the pair from fighting.

Silver rolled her eyes. ‘I am truly sorry about that, Ida. But if someone there had taken my suggestion to count in batches of fifty, he wouldn’t need to start all over again from one.’

‘Point taken, my darling lily of the day.’ Jaysen heaved the sackful of fishes onto his back with a grunt. ‘Remind me to do that the next time I get the fancy to hunt for fishes in the hundreds. ‘Let us go forth now and satisfy the appetite of the glutton cur Moppie.’ He struck a heroic pose, made ridiculous by the large lump on his back.

‘Yeah, and may he devour you, fair knight.’ Silver muttered darkly as she rummaged through the various potions and books in her backpack to retrieve a Tower scroll.

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I hate the Moppie Quest. I really do. It involves the Climbing of Towers. Urgh.

Peanut butter Cookies~