Chapter 4 - It seems to fall apart...

The group has returned from their group. Falk, Mavis, Ashton and... Drakel? After venturing to the ends of Kaviskal, they finally had returned back to Harensdale. Little did they know...

The ride was long, tough and well-fought but eventually, they had reached the walls of Harensdale. Escorted out of the carriage by the Knight, Mavis puffed in a heap of fresh air, relieving himself of his stress. The assassin and the Knight took off into the streets for some odd reason, yet it did not concern the other two. Ashton followed behind Mavis and escorted him to the castle, where he invited him happily into the main room. Entering the castle, Mavis turned and stared in awe at the interior designing. Rich, red carpet and spruce carved supports covered the place, with swirls of leaves spiraling down the outer-rim of the tree. At the back of this room lay a giant throne. One was too big for Ashton himself. He could fit two, maybe three men alike on such a seat. Mavis was invited to have a feast with Ashton and he gladly accepted, on the condition that he did not have to see Falk again. Ashton thought for a small while.

“Deal.” He said, offering a white-gloved hand to Mavis. Mavis took his hand and shook it very softly, smiling awkwardly. He then walked off to investigate the interior design, curious in its pattern. After a few hours, Mavis and Falk had eventually met up and were talking in the bar in town" It turns out, whatever they had experienced in the past was behind them. The Knight had gone back to the barracks to tell his commander what had happened to the regiment and how they had been killed. He did not mention the name ‘Falk’ and instead said a pack of wolves attacked them in the night, followed by the sounds of peculiar flute noises as Mavis had discussed. The commander spoke of the noises, telling The Knight that he had heard someone playing it in a segment of the cave under the castle. The Knight’s eyes widened, and he quickly ran off in shock to this statement.

He dashed past the citizens in a very unformal matter and approached the musical group that worked for the Castle regularly. He puffed softly and asked the teacher if anyone in their group played the flute. None of them spoke up, and the teacher looked away, almost as if he was scaring them. Soon, two Knights ran up behind him and grabbed him, pinning him the floor.

“You are under arrest for violation of breaking the code of Knight honour, Drakel!” They said, shouting, keeping him down in his restless struggle to break free. Drakel yelled out and tried to explain that there was a person trying to overthrow Ashton, and that they needed him. The Knights took it as a challenge and said to him. “What makes you think we can’t do this ourselves?” One of them said, judgingly. Drakel tried to explain his case, but it seemed that they didn’t care to listen. They didn’t seem as if they were telling the truth about his arrest. Approaching from the bar, Mavis and Falk walked around, watching Drakel fall under arrest. But instead of helping him as he thought they would, they simply walked off after glancing at him with pity. The teacher hurried the music group off and Drakel was taken to the Dungeon in wait of Ashton’s judgement. Yet… He never showed up.

 

EARLIER THAT DAY…

 

Ashton walked around the castle until eventually he came across a sign above the bedroom door. ‘KING DUNCAN’S ROOM’ ‘Ashton’s Room’. Stepping inside the room, he lay flat on his back on the bed and sighed to himself. Mavis, Falk and Drakel, the Knight were the only things on his mind since he had gotten back. And so much so, he forgot to attend to his royal duties- Not like he had many he had to worry about, anyway. At that moment, a Maid walked in, a note pinched between her fingertips. She bowed upon entering and lifted her hand up, the note shivering softly in her hand. Ashton looked over at her and said. “Don’t be afraid, ma’am. Come, come now.” The Maid walked closer to Ashton and handed him the note as he sat on up the bed. Soon, he started to read it.

“…I know you, Ashton. I’ve known you for a long time. If you want to learn who I am, come to the Garden of Everfrost outside Unsvaunt…”. Ashton stared at the page for quite a while and tried to figure out what the message had meant. “…What the hell- A stranger wants me to go to Unsvaunt?” He scanned over the note continuously, trying to find some sort of secret message. All he could see, disregarding the letter, was ink spills on the side of the page and a red-pasted stamp. Peeling the stamp from it’s place, he stared close at it. It was at this moment, he had realized something. Small pinches of powerful gas started to leak out into the room upon its removal and it caused the Maid to fall to the ground, entranced in a deep sleep. Ashton immediately stood up and ran for the door- Yet it was too late. He had fallen to the ground, entranced by the deep sleep. The last thing he heard were the thumps of footsteps across the oak floor, approaching closer and closer to him from the balcony…

 

THE NEXT DAY IN THE CAVES UNDER THE CASTLE OF HARENSDALE.

 

“Ashton…” The figure said. “You poor fool. I just knew you’d try to snoop around. It’s a shame I couldn’t kill you with the wolves, but that b*****d Mavis had to step in and ruin it.” They said, with pity in their tone. Their voice was masked by an obvious apprentice-level spell called ‘Vask’, a spell that covers up the original tone of one’s voice. Ashton, on the other hand was barely awake. His mouth was bound by a rope and he had chains on his ankles. Surprisingly enough, his wrists were free. His eye-lids were only just lifted with the little strength he had. He closed and opened them multiple times, adapting to the shading of the cave and finally, he heard the sounds once more: A flute. It chanted and left the smallest echo through what seemed to be a cave. It was cold, that’s for sure.

‘…That noise… Oh no. N-No… not again.’, Ashton thought, gathering up his thoughts. He felt up the area around him but all he could feel was the cold steel of chains. Ashton eventually gathered enough strength to sit up and leaned back against the steel walls. He looked around slowly, eyeing the dark cave through the bars. ‘Damnit… where are they… I just need to…’ He spotted his pocket-watch lying on a rock next to unnaturally big, black rock. Ashton crawled weakly to the edge of the cage and poked his head out the bars, lifting his hand attempting reach for it. Inevitably, he failed, and a black shoe pounced at his hand from beside the pocket-watch, causing him to quickly hide it once more.

The figure sighed and pulled a blade from its sheathe. “You’re quite valuable, Ashton. It seems keeping you in my little cage could prove quite beneficial for my sake…” The figure started to poke at the pointed edge of her blade with her thumb and looked at him through their masked face. After moments of silence, the figure grabbed the pocket-watch and walked closer to the cage. “Do you know who I am, Ashton?” They said, expecting a response.

“…No, no I don’t. But I’m sure as hell not going to sit here and let you have your way with me…!” He said angrily through the muffles of the rope, which translated to nothing for Lillith. He had no other strength than his mind. His physical body was crippled, and he couldn’t feel his legs strangely enough. The figure swiped at the lock on the cage and it broke in an instant. They crouched down and raised the blade to Ashton’s throat, saying.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you face-to-face, Ashton Darek. Why don’t you be a gentleman and respond with a simple ‘hello’?” She said ironically, knowing he couldn’t talk with the rope bounding his mouth. After a few moments of constant muffling, she moved her ear close to his face and he grumbled angrily. He raised his hands to attack her, but she poked at his neck softly with the sharp blade. Instantly, he lowered his hands and squeaked softly, threatened by her smart techniques. Lillith smiled happily and pet Ashton softly on the head, saying, “Good boy! You wouldn’t dare go against your superiors now, would you? I didn’t think so!”. Soon, she stood up and closed the cage behind her, locking it tight with an extra lock she had in her pocket. She looked around and thought for a moment to herself, saying out loud. “Y’know, I wonder when he’s going to be here.” Ashton raised an eyebrow and looked at Lillith curiously as to what she had said. Unfortunately, approaching from the shadows came a man dressed in a black, long cloak. Ashton turned his head to the shadowy figure and instantly widened his eyes in fear, knowing exactly who he was. It was the man that Ashton had supposedly ‘killed’ in Kaviskal. Ashton had no idea how he was able to catch up to him, but as he tried to think, Lillith spoke up, saying. “Well, I think it’s about time I head off.” Lillith grabbed the promised gold out of the robed man’s hands and walked off, cheekily winking at Ashton one more time before escaping. Ashton backed up against the steel walls of the cage and puffed softly.

“…I know you’re here to kill me… I should’ve expected to die at your hands yet I was certain you had fallen first…” Ashton said, contemplating to himself as he glanced at the man. The man roared out a chuckle and said.

“Ashton, you poor, poor man. You never killed me in Kaviskal... You merely broke my bones. Unfortunately for you, a Witch Doctor arrived on the scene just in time and saved me" He said, only to be cut off by Ashton’s distraught face.

“W-What? A witch doctor…? Did you catch his name?” Ashton said, with worry starting to full his mind.

The man looked down at Ashton and sighed, saying with his arms folded. “Yes. He went by the name, ‘Mavis’ but told us he was merely looking for somebody of great significance. That someone being you. He was going to sell you off to the slave trade for some good bucks, so I wanted to get to you first. I hired Lillith, an esteemed bounty hunter and well-known assassin to my aid. She used an Elven tool she stole from the Kingdom of Arnguard; A flute called ‘Charckwill’. She used that flute to manipulate the minds of the animals in the nearby area, specifically the wolves. She also used the powers of squirrels and cats to perform small squeaky noises to gain the advantage of surprise... Luckily for you, both your Knight AND the Witch Doctor came to the rescue. He really did look like a hero in your eyes, didn’t he? Heh. I knew you were gullible, but this really sells it.” He started to chuckle happily to himself and locked the cage up. Ashton looked down in defeat. Mavis, his own hero had betrayed him. After all those years of research and development, even he still had his faults. As he was slowly carried away, he started to lose hope in the one he looked up to…

 

IN THE DUNGEONS WHERE DRAKEL, THE KNIGHT HAD BEEN ARRESTED, WAITING FOR ASHTON.

 

Drakel sat all alone in the confinements of the prison, waiting for Ashton to arrive. He wasn’t actually quite sure what it was that he did. Did he not address the Captain as ‘Sir’ or was it because he ran in an unformal manner to the group of music students? Drakel wasn’t quite sure. He decided to get up and look around. A completely deserted, stone-cracked room. To his left, a pile of potatoes sat lying on the floor over the top of something wooden, built into the ground. There was a bed- Well, a wooden board hooked with two chains into the cobblestone wall. Drakel sighed and walked over to the pile of potatoes, grabbing one from the pile. He started to chew on it, listening to the Knights standing just outside the dungeon. They were having a very interesting conversation until they were cut off by George, a messenger. He wore a brown tunic, leather-brown pants and black shoes. He had blonde hair, green eyes and had adoring white skin, all topped off by his brown cap.

“A-Ashton, our Lord has been kidnapped!” He said, squealing in absolute fear. The Knights instantly gasped, one of them looking back at Drakel, saying.

“Where the hell did you take Ashton, you brute?!” He said, grunting loudly. Drakel was completely shocked that they thought HE had kidnapped Ashton.

“Wait, what!? Why do you think I kidnapped Ashton? I have nothing to do with any of that business!” He ran up to the bars and grabbed onto them, dropping the potato, landing on the dirtied floor. George looked over at Drakel and tilted his head gently. The Knight suspicious of Drakel and his actions said.

“Aye, you’re the last one that Ashton had seen before supposedly falling asleep. The Maid was kidnapped too, and we’ve heard things from your little friends that you were sneaking around the top areas of the Kingdom, near Ashton’s room” The Knight seemed to have absolute confidence in himself when he said that. Drakel looked in surprise and shock, saying.

“…Falk and Mavis…?” Drakel said, distraught in disbelief at the statement. His hands quivered as he held onto the bars and looked down. The Knight looked at Drakel, nodding his head and said.

“Oh-hoh-hoh, Falk is her name? Well, that’s good’ta know for the future. Regarding your other ‘friend’ Mavis, he told me that you were sneaking around the top areas of the Castle and even had proof, showing me a book and quill with handwriting of yours" It was obviously fake, but because he didn’t have any magic to prove it was fake, he couldn’t. The Knight looked at Drakel, who was obviously shooken-up and sighed angrily. He grabbed George by the hand and told him to follow him. George nodded his head yet turned it to Drakel one last time, pitying him.