You guys should really congradulate those plotbunnies. They made me update. We took another vacation to munchkinland and I wrote this chapter.
No, acid or any other drug was not involved.

PS: Terribly long chapter. Oh well.

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Persistance
Chapter Two

Ceana tugged at the collar of her Red Steal armor. It always seemed unbearably humid and murky in the swamps of Kerning, which by no means exempted Party Quest. She often wondered–something she did very often– why Lekalis could not simply decrease the temperature, being it her who made the hidden dimension in the first place.

In fact, Ceana had confronted Lekalis personally about this issue. Lekalis had smiled, and her reply had been fairly blunt, “Do you want to enter a party quest or do you not?”

Ceana had then let that question subside. That, of course, had been a long time ago. She was more knowledgeable now of the world around her, and there had so far been no repeats of the pit incident.

Remembering that day, she peered into her items sack at the blue potion. She had kept it all this time, and had never given up hope that one day she would meet that thief stranger (as she had begun to call him) again.

“Are you ready Ceana?” Came the voice of their party leader, Effie. They had just killed king slime, and were about to advance to bonus. Effie knew that this was an important moment to Ceana.

“Alright, here we go! Wait…we’re missing a pass! Hey, BOWMAN!” Effie shouted as she began to shake the ladder that she and the bowman, Gaereth, were currently climbing.

“Stop! I’m dropping it, I’M DROPPING IT!” He shouted back as he clung to the rope with one hand, tossing the pass up to Effie with the other. He mumbled something incoherent before Effie kicked him on top the head with her foot.

“I’m sorry; I was too busy watching my foot slip, mind repeating that?”

“Uhg…no.”

“Good. Now, get ready Ceana!”

“Been ready, Effie.”

“Oh! Okay then, let’s go!”

Effie skipped over to Cloto and handed her all the passes, and Ceana felt the blue light flash around her quickly, new power surging through her, reaching the next level.

She had completed her final Party Quest.

She nodded to Cloto as her surroundings vanished, landing safely in the bonus stage of the quest.

“How does it feel to be level thirty-one now, Cea? Where are you going to train until you can go to Ludibrium? Watcha gonna be once you reach your third advancement? Is it really murky in here or is it just me?”

Ceana shrugged off all of Effie’s questions as she reached into her bag of items hooked to her belt. Suddenly the chain on it snapped and its contents dropped to the floor, mesos potions and all. Sighing, she bent down to pick up the scattered items.

“Wow, lots of manas! And…a single blue? Huh?” Effie continued to ramble as reached out her hand to pick up the lone blue potion, but Ceana quickly grabbed it away and returned it to the bag, causing Effie to recoil her hand, a bit shocked.

“Hey, I was just going to pick it up for you! What got into you all of a sudden?” The young mage asked, looking perplexed.

“Sorry,” Ceana quickly apologized. “That potion is…special to me.”

“I won’t ask.” Effie answered, rolling her eyes at Ceana, “This is goodbye for now, I guess. Maybe I’ll see you when I reach level thirty-five!” She waved goodbye to Ceana before disappearing from sight, returning to Kerning City.

Later on, Ceana wandered aimlessly around the slums of Kerning, pondering where she should train until level thirty-five. She began daydreaming about the stranger from the pit incident long ago, wondering when she would see him again to return the potion.

Of course, she realized how insignificant a single blue potion had been to him. It wasn’t just common courtesy leaving it there for her, more like he just didn’t want to lug anything else around.

But Ceana still stuck to her goal. She would catch up to him, and return the potion none the less. She had swore on it.

Too lost in her thoughts and not paying attention, she collided with another person walking on the sidewalk, resulting in both of them being knocked to the ground.

“I’m so sorry! I-I wasn’t paying attention! Here, let me help you up…” The stranger quickly leaped back onto his feet and extended a hand for her.

Ceana wondered at first that maybe it had been the thief stranger from long ago, but looked up to see otherwise. It was an assassin, yes, but he was clad in Brown Sneak armor, and his hair was the same color as hers, not the deep pitch-black of the thief stranger.

“No, I’m sorry, it was-”

Ceana gazed blankly over the boys shoulder, and gaped at what she saw.

The term ‘Speak of the devil’ came to mind as she instantly recognized her thief stranger. She could never miss his hair, wayward dark hair with bangs sill free-falling into his emerald eyes…

Except this time he was not in his Dark Shadow armor.

He was now wearing Blue China armor, but still wore his dark pilfer.

Ceana felt her hope wither away helplessly as she came to realize the terrible truth of her plan- she would never catch up to him.

She continued to peer over the shoulder of the boy she had bumped into, and watched silently as her thief stranger walked into the internet café, surrounded by many other high-leveled friends, It seemed.

Ceana’s eyes began to sting, but she held back the tears as hard as she could with the little of her confidence that remained in-tact.

“Um…Miss. Miss? Hello?”

Ceana let go of the strangers hand that she had still been holding, and realized that she was still sitting on the cement from her previous fall.

“I’m…I’m sorry.” She apologized for the second time that day, wiping away the tears that had started to well up in her eyes. She couldn’t let this bring her down. She had to keep going. She would continue to go through with her plan, even if it took much longer than she expected.

“I didn’t bump into you too hard or anything did I? Did I hurt you that much? I’m really sorry, this is my fault. We’ll go into the café, I’ll order you some tea or someth-”

“NO. No…no, it’s ok. It’s not your fault. It’s…something I just saw. I’m fine now. I don’t know what came over me.” Explained Ceana, her voice a bit shaky. She felt embarrassed, crying in front of a total stranger.

But now that he mentioned it, she was a bit thirsty. She lost track of how long she had been walking around the city.

“But…I will take you up on that offer.” Ceana smiled, which cheered the boy up a bit. Besides, she felt like doing some investigating. And maybe she would find out about some good spots for training in the meantime.

Ceana composed herself as she entered the café, following the boy to a table far to the let corner. A waitress came and took their order, then left. She scanned around the café for her thief stranger, and found him sitting on a stool at the bar with the same people he was with before. She would have continued gawking, but the boy interrupted her.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Oh, Ceana. Sorry. What is yours?”

“Derek, nothing special. So, why were you crying again?”

She had no reason to tell him, but she felt like finally telling someone her story. She had kept it to herself for so long, it was about time that she let it loose. Bottling things up was bad for a persons health, she heard so on the news.

So she told Derek every bit of her story, down to the moment just outside where hope had seemed to fail her.

“So he’s right over there?” Derek said out loud, pointing to the thief stranger sitting at the bar.

“Shh! Not so loud!” Ceana hushed him quickly, but it was too late. Her thief stranger had turned around.

Ceana froze solid. She didn’t know what to do, and her body wasn’t reacting to any of the signals her brain was sending to it. Move. Move. Turn around. MOVE.

No response. It was too late.

His eyes fell on hers. Shimmering green versus dull aqua. The forest versus the river, land versus sea.

And just as soon as it had happened, it was over. The thief stranger had turned his attention back to his drink and his chatting friends.

Ceana quickly snapped her head back towards Derek.

“I’m sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorry! Don’t kill me!” He begged, seeing the venomous look she had to have been giving him right now.

‘Cool down, Cea, cool down.’ She began to relax her nerves before she said anything to Derek.

“But really, just go give it to him. It won’t kill to try.”

“No.”

“If you’re too scared, I’ll go do it for you. It isn’t hard.”

“No! You just…don’t understand! You’re lucky that you only have to deal with women when it comes to stuff like this, with men it’s much harder!” She said just as the waitress appeared with their tea.

“Erm…excuse me.” She said quietly, knowing she was intruding on a touchy subject. She quickly sat down the drinks and left.

The two sat in silence for what seemed like eternity. Pretty soon, the thief stranger and his friends left. He didn’t even look at her as he walked casually out the door.

“Well…it’s getting late, I have to be going now. It was nice talking to you, and good luck with that potion.” Derek said as he stood up from his seat, leaving the mesos to pay for the tea.

And then he was also gone. Ceana sat at the table alone, now lonely with no one to talk to. She wished they could have talked more, but it really was getting late.

She got out of her seat and turned around, only to come face to face with someone who has been standing behind her chair.

Her thief stranger.

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AHAHA. Cliff hanger!

Things are never as they appear >.>