Chapter 2: Not-So-Royal Treatment

Among the countless things that can greet you in the entrance of an abandoned cave, two heavily-armed, masked men aren't inherently the thing that Sano was searching for, quite the opposite actually.

Screeeeeeeeeech...


A shrill noise bounced throughout the rocky walls and nested loudly into Sano's ears. The rude awakening jolted his nervous system to life as he contemplated his next move, but his concentration was falling

as he heard a different noise, the noise of distant murmuring. He heard two separate voices, seemingly two young adult males, arguing about the strange brown lump on the ground, which, in reality, was just

Sano covering himself with his oversized coat like a blanket, to shield himself from the cold. Suddenly, the sharp noise started again,

Screeeeeeeeeeeeeech...

Sano finally identified the odd noise as a sharp metal object dragging slowly on the cold, rugged floor, and he also approximated that the source of the noise has now moved from the entrance of the mine to a

few steps in front of him. He decides to bite the bullet and look at the source of the noise. Although instead of people staring down at him, like he thought there would be , there was a pebble flying right for his

face. It struck right between his eyes with an echoey, resounding, *Thunk*, as if it just hit a hollow coconut.

"Jeez is there anything in there?" One of the strangers asks jokingly as they offer him a hand.


Sano simply scoffs at the joke and grabs the strangers hand, he sorely picks himself up off of the cold, rocky floor as his bones crack and shift.


"So... who are you and why are you sleeping in our abandoned cave." The stranger asks Kindly, despite Sano's grumpy attitude.


"My name is Sano, I'm a journalist exploring the weird corners of our world, but now I've seem to have gotten shipwrecked on this strange island."  Sano responds adjusting his coat and briskly combing his hair

with his thin fingers.

"You may call me Sir Esquire lV, I was the ruler of a far away island before a terrible war forced my royal guard and I to flee, we searched far and wide for new land to call our kingdom, losing many men along

the way, but eventually, we landed here, it certainly not a kingdom, but it’s certainly a start.”  Explains the self-proclaimed royal.


“So…. You live in this mine?” Sano asks,, while yawning .


“No, we live in a village just north of here, we were on our way back, would you like to come with us?”  Esquire offers to Sano.


“Why not, it’s not like I have a better resting place here” Sano says as his sign from the prior night falls to the floor, almost as if it was defeated by his comment.


Sano moves closer to Esquire but is stopped by the sound of sudden dashing and a loud *Shing!* Noise.

the journalist opens his eyes to see the other knight pointing his sword right at his neck,


“Watch yourself, outsider, just because we’re inviting you to the village dosen’t mean we’ll be friendly” The knight replies in a gravely voice.


“I’m unarmed you dink! Get that thing away from my neck!” Sano yells out, clearly not helping the ever-tensing situation


“ENOUGH! Stryder put your sword away, Sano means no harm… I presume?” He says ignorantly


“You’re gonna get yourself killed some day, you know that right?” Stryder scoffs as he reluctantly sheathes his sword.


“You’re way too aggressive for your own good!” Esquire says , slightly raising his voice


The two bicker senselessly as Sano stares at them, observing their rather curious get ups,


Esquire was wearing a weathered, gray mask, with a faded smiley face on it that covered only his eyes and his nose, it seemed familiar to Sano, but he didn’t feel like examining it closer. Besides the mask,

Esquire was a well built young man, with wavy dirty blonde hair, that flowed down to the back his neck.  He drags around a ridiculously long sword, probably the sword that was making that horrid screeching

noise that woke Sano up in the first place, and a crossbow lays strapped against his shimmering armour.


Stryder, had a similar, albeit slightly different tone, His mask covered the entirety of his face and had more of a blank slate stare, that gave Sano an eery chill every time he looked into it’s eyes. He had

short, black, jagged hair that stopped at just around the top of his shoulders, and he was taller than Esquire, a point he would not fail to bring up during their petty argument. His armour situation was shifted a

bit as well, his armour was the same material but was a lot dirtier, and instead of a ridiculously long sword and crossbow, Stryder opted for a much more normal sword, and a massive axe that loomed

threateningly over Sano.

After his analysis, Sano was quickly snapped back to reality and realized that the two were still arguing, after a few more minutes, Sano decided to leave the cave and start exploring once again,  he 

manages to slip away unnoticed, once he surfaces he decides to look at the scene in front of him. The grass outside is still covered in a fresh dew as the sun finishes rising, Sano appreciates the sights around 

him for a moment before finally deciding to head north, like Esquire had said.

Sano’s path is a rugged one, he passes through thick marshlands, wades through thick forests and climbs up small mountains, all without taking a break, although his pacing is certainly starting to slow,

once he arrives to the foot of another rocky hill, Sano finally takes a small break and finally processes the situation he’s in.


“I think I’ve finally gone insane” he starts to mumble himself


“It’s only just hit me that I’ve been wandering around a possibly deserted island, and the only thing that’s directed me to any sort of direction, was two masked men who were heavily armed and had brightly

coloured armour, almost as if they were out of some childish cartoon! Ugh! This going nowhere!” He cries out


Sano begins walking anew and continues rambling about the two men he had encountered for another hour of painful walking. After tirelessly walking for that excruciating hour, his walking pace slows to a

crawl as exhaustion finally afflicts him.


“How long have I been walking!? The sun is almost set and I’m yet to find anything! Argh!”


He sits down and looks around him for any sign of life, a smoke signal, a flag, a building, heck just an actual person would help ease Sano’s mind but as his luck would have it, nothing, nothing at all. Sano finally accepts his defeat and lays down on the cold, hard ground, sniffling slightly due to the cold of the night.

Although Sano can’t seem to rest easily due to a nearby sound of logs of wood bouncing around together, he quickly gets up and goes to investigate…