Death Hunters 14: Back in Stratalia

    In the office of Jinron-Lia, the old man with his mushroom hat and chin strap sits at his desk looking out the window. Today he has asked his son Tyros and his son’s wife Jasma to come see him, scheduling a meeting for with-in the next thirty minutes given their busy lives in order to discuss the letter Hollia had sent home.

   “Hyatha-Aria,” says Jinron, “mother…”

    In an instant his mind flashes back to ages ago, he is now almost two hundred years old, give or take a few decades, but his mind flashes back to when he was a boy of a mere fourteen years old. Back then he was a happy go lucky hero, the Mushroom Magician. He had already been going on adventurers for a few years by this time, ever since he was eight, using his mushroom based magic spells to both delight his friends and defeat his enemies and monsters. He never did anything on a planetary scale, or stopped warring kingdoms, he would fight monsters, save people, and fight small time crooks, including a trio who had made themselves out to be some serious gang but were just really three comical bunglers.

    Even though he was a hero, he had a curfew and would often have to sneak back into his room outside the castle walls. Thanks to the cat-like Kuhrai traits he inherited from his mother, something he never let anyone else find out about, and was even able to make a theme around the silly hat he wore to hide his cat like ears, he was able to scale walls and stealthily creep across the window sills and drain spouts. Amongst his favorite and fastest ways to his room was across the stain glass windows of the family library.

    Despite his long years now, he remembers the situation clearly, or at least hopes he still does, some details are fuzzy, but remembers hearing his father, the hero Stratos The Sky Warrior, asking a strange woman Jinron had never seen before who she was. Through the edges of the stained glass he could see a blond woman wearing his mother’s dress standing in the library looking at one of the records of his grandfather, the hero Gino-Lee, he himself Jinron-Lia being the first to have gotten the name Lia as changed from Lee per the marriage rites between Kuhrai families merging family names for their children during politically important marriages being imposed on him as his mother was Kuhrai, even though his father wasn’t.

    The woman transformed into his mother, and she revealed a truth that even Jinron still can’t stomach. His own father’s words sticking to his brain like slime “you…you looked just like the pictures of my mother?”

    His mother had actually visited their world before, in disguise as a human under the name Harley the White Priestess, and had been the woman his grandfather had fallen in love with and bore a child, whom they named Staltos-Lee. He remembers his mother pouring out this long story, and excuse in Jinron’s mind, about political issues forcing her to leave Gino-Lee despite his ailment thanks to the venom of the Shining Black Dragon the two of them had fought, slain, and saved the world from, and leave him with their son. Something about not interfering with the planet’s affairs or something and it would get her in trouble.

    Jinron remembers her saying that many years later she would return only to find Gino-Lee had died and their son was no where to be found. Instead on her travels she met a man that reminded her of Gino-Lee, Stratos the Sky Warrior.

   Jinron sneers at the memory, he refuses to believe even after all these years that she never found out until the wedding that Stratos the Sky Warrior was really her son Staltos-Lee all grown up, that she never checked to see if this man with the same last name was the same guy, found out that Gino-Lee had no other children, or cousins with the same name, or brothers who could have had kids to have kept that name; that all along she never knew till the binding ceremony when the priest said, “Stratos the Sky Warrior, born Staltos-Lee”.

   He remembers his mother saying she had been meaning to tell him something ever since the wedding, that she was his mother, but was afraid of how he would react learning the truth because while amongst the Kuhrai incestual marriages aren’t un-heard of nor frowned upon, but amongst Aesperians they are completely taboo; not to mention that even at that time with the issues about intermarriage restrictions on interference with Aesperia lifted she could still get in trouble for having bore a child with Gino-Lee as she did so before the law was lifted and the possible scandals and possible accusations of intentionally bearing a child twice in such a prestigious family in two separate generations of it as being possibly part of some scheme; amongst other paranoid thoughts that Jinron has written off as excuses made up at the spurt of the moment thanks to being caught in her human disguised form.

    Jinron *humphs* remembering how his mother was practically pleading with Stratos, asking his forgiveness and even apologizing for not being there to help Gino-Lee or Stratos when he was a kid. Jinron even at the time sneered it off, as she had kept this from him for fourteen years. Jinron was raised to respect the law, strict concepts of right and wrong as he had read in so many books, and been taught about by various individuals on his adventures. There is good, and there is evil.

    Jinron sneers remembering the completely un-expected reaction of his father, rather than turn her away and cast her out as Jinron felt he should have, he instead embraced her and patted her head telling her that he loved her and always would…”

    *knock, knock*

    Jinron is brought back to reality. He looks at the clock, barely any time has passed. He has played this whole scenario over in his mind so many times that even when he harps on one detail or moment it still goes by quickly.

   “Come in.” says Jinron knowing full well its his son and his son’s wife, the elf maiden Jasma.

    Tyros enters first, his cloths those of an adventurer. His leather gloves still sparking a bit with his energy, Jinron hopes its left over from what ever was doing before they arrived earlier that day from a trip to the kingdom of Postorina and not from anxiety over this meeting. Jinron passes a glance at the woman his son married, her green tunic with its brown leather straps, her high boots, her two katana strapped to her hips, she came in fully armed not even putting her weapons away. He tries not to stare as he has often caught himself doing and knows she must had caught him too, at her pointed ears under her un-naturally yellow long blond hair.

    They sit down and just stare at Jinron.

    “I trust you two must know why I asked you here?”

    “Too waist our time?” says Jasma crossing her arms

    “Now, now my dear,” says Tyros, “lets just hear my father out, I’m sure he’s not once again going to harp on about trying to interfere with Holly’s mission…” he looks at his father from the corner of his eyes and smiles, “is he?”

   “Not so much,” says Jinron, “However while I will acknowledge that I have been a bit…over protective in the past, I can not just sit idly by while my grand-daughter is…training to be…to…”

    “Control the very transformations that you refused old man.” finishes Jasma.

    “Father,” says Tyros, “You know very well that I myself have undergone this same training under grandmother, as has my son, I am well aware, long well aware, that you don’t approve. We had this conversation when I went, and again with my son.”

    “We both support and applaud her decision.” adds Jasma.

   Tyros and Jasma go to stand with Tyros saying, “Now father if there is nothing else, we just now returned after a rather expedient run on the horses and really need to take a shower and change our attire before we have to head out again this afternoon.”

    Jinron puts up his hand, “there…is one other thing.”

   Tyros and Jasma sit back down looking at each other and shrugging.

   “On the subject of Holly’s mission, the whole…Kuhrai…issue aside, I am not comfortable with Byron waiting to send her party across the Archae Sea. In fact I am against this action all together. Considering how long its taking, and the problem with the boats they left behind I see no reason why they can’t travel back a ways. I have some captains in Hanalan that owe me some favors who could take them down through the islands and into the Great Sea via the Devil’s straight, up the coast and get to Deigo that way.”

    “Why?” asks Jasma, “The whole point of going to Deigo is for my brother’s ship to take them across the Great Sea; and my brother is meeting them in Sae-Rin right across the Archae Sea from Osopika. Going from there across the desert is much faster than back tracking, waiting, and more waiting between hopping ships all over the Gulf of Archae.”

    “I understand,” says Jinron, “however there has been an increase in the terrorist activities of this Magnus Militia group all over that sea. They are getting bolder, and if they knew the daughter of…”

     “They don’t” says Tyros, “They wouldn’t know father.”

    “Besides,” says Jasma, “my brother will make sure they stay straight and don’t get mixed up in any of this Magnus none-sense, and on top of that he’s not exactly a slouch on the whole super-heroics adventurer side, not to mention whose on Holly’s party. So no offense, and all respect to my husband’s father, but we really could use that shower.”

    “Father,” says Tyros as he and Jasma stand, “what’s the real reason for this meeting? You can’t honestly have thought you’d
change our minds, or that even that would have made any difference even if you could. Even with out Gold Wolf, they’d still try.”

    Jinron looks down at his desk, “Okay,” he says, “You got me, I’m just worried, Holly’s not been away from Stratalia so long before, and so far for that matter. Plus all this Magnus talk all over the place, from the Archae Sea to…”

    “Delca.” says Jasma, “This is all about what happened in Delca.”

    She calms her tone, “We understand your concern, she’s my daughter, you think I’m not worried about her? I am scared sick for her, but I remind myself, she is a Lia after all, its like a family tradition to have some crazy quest. But you’re worried over nothing, my brother will make sure nothing happens, and besides her friends aren’t exactly slouches you know either. Can’t imagine much out there can give any one of them much trouble. Plus with what Hyatha is teaching her she’ll also be a lot more formidable than your average adventurer, not that she already wasn’t. You may not have been able to notice it, but Holly is a lot more powerful, and a lot more capable of taking care of herself than you give her credit for. So yes, I understand your concern, but also, please don’t try anything else to get in the way please.”

    As they leave Tyros turns back his father, “Thanks dad, I was looking forward to a nice shower with my wife, but now she’s pissed. You know I have to live with her right? A pissed off elf girl isn’t fun. Heh.”

    Jinron sighs after they leave and looks at the wall safe, well at the painting of Gino-Lee fighting the Shining Black Dragon with the other three members of his party missing from the painting per Jinron’s commission for it, which has a wall safe behind and thinks, “I tried, I really did, last ditch effort right?”

    That night Jasma gets up from her bed next to Tyros, throws on a robe and heads into their bathroom. From thin air she produces a palm sized silver device that opens up like a pocket make-up mirror. However instead of a mirror there is a screen. She taps a few of the keys on it and calms up a man, who even with the pointed ears and hairless face one would hardly recognize as an elf thanks to his square jaw, scowl expression, and pointy yellow hair with each spike adorned by a red tip.

    “Evening brother,” says Jasma.

    “So,” says the man known as Gold Wolf, “It time yet or did you just call me to show off your new robe?”

    “Funny as ever dear brother,” she says, “No, the last letter said they would be heading out soon though, however they will stop by Osopika first and meet up with Byron. It shouldn’t be but a few days more.”

    “Good,” says Gold Wolf, “This jumping back and forth is getting annoying, the locals here are too jumpy, and the guys on the other side keep wandering what I’m doing in Texas all the time.”

   He pauses for a moment, “So, well,” *cracks neck*, “You said you’d call either to tell me its time, or if something else is up that would get in the way, having anymore trouble with that dean?”

    “No,” says Jasma, “and please keep it down my husband is sleeping, my father in law doesn’t know our intentions, but he has been acting oddly, a bit irrational. Not sure if he’s just overly concerned about Holly, after all he was jumpy when Byron went to Asta. But not this jumpy, he calls us into some repetitive purposeless meeting about wanting Holly to come back home. As if that would happen. I don’t think he could really try anything more like he did in Delca given they are practically in Byron’s back yard, and literally in Hyatha’s front yard.”

    “Well so long as everything goes according to plan I got to problems…you not getting cold feet now are you, given that one of these heroes is your daughter?”

    “Adventurers,” corrects Jasma, “Here they are called adventurers, and no, I know she and her party, remember that also okay, its party not team here, will be able to handle it.”

    “Good,” says Gold Wolf, “I’ll come back to Aesperia in three days, call me then to confirm okay, and sis, next time please try to make it earlier in the day then this.”

   He hangs up and Jasma makes the device vanish.

   *sigh*

   “The Magnus Empire,” she thinks to herself, “I know you can do it my dear, mommy has faith in her little girl…still I wish I could be there with you. My super-hero brother and those over the top super-beings you’ve gathered with you should help.”

    She shakes her head and whispers, “Look at me, I’m just as jumpy as that old man, at least I have good reason to know to be worried.”

    She leaves and heads back to bed.

    “So,” says Tyros as Jasma lays down beside her, “Gold Wolf getting impatient?”

    He leans over and kisses her, “Don’t worry babe, Holly can handle those tech-heads, plus you know she’s got a Kuhrai, an angel, and the ex-empress herself with her so don’t worry.”

   He leans over; Jasma knows he’s just trying to reassure himself just as she has been. To remind themselves that it’s a good
idea, and what the oracle they had brought from The Green Mountain in the Makai Cluster told them in private, that their daughter must fight along side heroes of old and new to topple an empire, if they do not then the land would be ruled by death and smoke. Not an easy pill to swallow, even if they both had stopped a war between feuding kingdoms, but after all as Jasma has told herself so many times, members of this family seem to keep saving the world, or some other world as in the case of their son Byron. She just hopes she can do it, her companions she has no worries about.

   “But Holly going up against a military minded empire as her first big political quest?” thinks Jasma as she drifts off to sleep, “why couldn’t she just save some kingdom up north or stop a war between swords and sorcery factions? Calm down girl, it will be okay, it will be okay.”