10 PRODEA’s MYSTERIOUS ARTS (1/2)

”Oi!” called Yosh rushing to the twin brothers at the great steps. ”Thank Bathala I found you first. I've commissioned Luna and Stella to help me search for the two of you and played a little gamble on the side. Whoever sees you first gets to eat my Para-Applemango fruit that I've been saving and, whew, that's really a close one!”

The two just looked to Yosh's smiling face with blank expressions as if feeling a little sick.

”Hey, are you guys ok? I said a Para-Appplemango fruit? The rarest mango fruit there is? The one that's so deliciously sweet and juicy?” he stopped awhile awaiting his brother's reactions to the mystical fruit that they've been craving since winter. ”Oh, come on! What's wrong with you two?”

”Were just tired is all,” said Karus lethargically.

”Oh! I guess you won't be too impressed then if I told you that I ACED MY EXAMS TODAY! OH YEAH!” he said shouting with much enthusiasm.

The two began looking each other and suddenly created a very excited face filled with smiling eyes masking what they fell, giving opened mouths and raised eyebrows to further the effect. Nobody can see them like that, especially not Yosh. He won't quit bothering them what's up and they think he's still not ready to hear the news.

”Hooray! We're going to the North after all!” exclaimed Kayzar as he grabbed Yosh's head with his arm and scrubbed his hair vigorously.

”Wow! How'd you do it? I mean you can't really, seriously, positively, ace that exam! You didn't even listen to my lecture; you didn't even make a third of the attention you gave me to Kayzar when he's tackling about Military Tactical Decisions and Elemental Maneuvers!”

”Well, as I've said I just crossed the ones that don't matter and picked the ones that did. Even if I didn't understand Kuya-Kayzar's lecture, it doesn't mean that I didn't memorized some words that he uttered. When it comes to mnemonics, I can be a lot tougher to beat! I haven't really ever experienced an exam beating me!”

”Hah! Good thing you have the ears of a jungle cat and a memory like a snap dragon. I really envy that thing you have there,” said Karus patting his shoulders.

”Yep, that's why I consider myself a good hunter - not to mention a handsome one If I might add.”

”Here we go again,” sighed Kayzar smiling and letting go of Yosh leaving him standing in the middle of the steps.

”Hahaha, I'm sorry Kayzar. I forgot that I shouldn't patronize him that much.”

Karus and Kayzar went to the top of the stairs smiling leaving Yosh alone at the steps.

”What? What's wrong? It's the truth!” he shouted as he ran to join his brothers who are hurriedly walking to get away from him.

The three then walked merrily along the long hallways going to the eastern part of the Palace. Karus and Kayzar looked at each other as if conversing with their eyes, giving an understanding with one another. They just smiled and agreed to keep up showing a happy appearance so that everyone wouldn't notice something's amiss.

”Hey, Hey! I told you to include me in your conversation!” shouted Yosh waving his hands in front of the twin's face interrupting their almost-telepathic conversation. ”You shouldn't leave the other company guessing what you're thinking! It's rude!”

”I'm sorry we're just realizing something...” said Karus snapping away from their deep thoughts.

”Yeah,” replied Kayzar. ”We're thinking, since we're going to the north. We should visit our dear friend Nemer.”

”Right~” complained Yosh, ”I know where this is going. You want me to go to Nemer and ask him to tell his master Dal'Gur to make us new weapons. You two always pass me errands!”

”Hahaha, don't get mad. This time we'll be coming with you.”

”Really?” asked Yosh with an unconvinced tone. ”I don't like the sound of that...”

”Yeah, we'll be coming with to see this through personally,” added Karus. ”We really shouldn't make use of those antique items you swiped. It's enough our own blood relatives hate us. I don't want another rumor spreading about us now being thieves.”

”I wish Kuya-Reus was here. It sure is fulfilling to brag about my grades to him.”

”Er... Kuya-Reus is still at the southern villages, right? And if by chance he's here, you can't gloat your scores to him. He aced every single course there is so you can't compete with that,” smiled Karus almost laughing.

”Come to think of it, I think he's on the record to be the most promising prince there is,” added Kayzar. ”He even beat dad's score.”

”Well, whatever. I'm still going for it,” replied Yosh confidently. ”Meanwhile, we should go to Madj and Kudos. I think they're included in my list of... gloat-able persons.”

”But first, we must go to Grandpa Narra to help him prepare,” recommended Kayzar.

”Right, the sooner we leave, the better,” replied Yosh. ”I'm getting shivers just staying another day here.”

-------ooO0Ooo-------

”Madam,” whispered a deep voice in the silhouettes inside a Hut made with bamboo, layered with thin striped wood slabs that beamed to support it. ”Is the Grand Princess Alright? Is the healer doing some progress?”

”Shush...” replied Zeba irritated, speaking as softly as possible, trying to ignore Karr with his annoying questions that have been going on for quite some time. ”Don't you see that her highness is in this critical situation? She doesn't need to be disturbed, especially with your annoyingly loud whispers?”

The Grand Princess lies half-naked on a bed in the hut. The area where she is lying, where the Water Caster is healing her, is covered with a thick brown curtain all around. Zeba is inside the thick curtains both curious and anxious of Prodea's situation. Karr, the ever so loyal bodyguard, stayed outside the curtains kneeling backwards, watching everything outside the door, guarding them while being so persistently inquisitive about her charge's condition.

The medic that has been treating her is wearing her ceremonial healing robe: a long blue leathery robe that has lots of wavy designs. It is somehow contoured and is curiously moving in a downward fashion almost magical. It has lots of red dangling threads on the seams that is brightly lighting its surrounding area. There are two jugs of water on Prodea's side which the Water Caster manipulates to flow and move about to create some sort of fine water pins that pierces through Prodea's skin - an acupuncture procedure with the water flowing and glowing magically.

”I don't think I can do this alone,” the Water Caster uttered softly to Zeba, while directing all of her concentration in manipulating another set of water pins she's gathering from the jugs to puncture Prodea's pressure points. ”This is a very complicated procedure, not to mention Her Highness to be so powerful. She is sucking all of my energy subconsciously and I don't think that I can hold my concentration any longer.”

”What should we do?” asked Zeba to the Water Caster.

”I think we should...”

As the Water Caster Medic uttered her last words Prodea's Amplifyers began to glow an almost blinding light. Zeba, and the medic near her, began to shy away to her presence as the light engulfed the almost dark room that's only been lit by a few candles earlier on.

They saw Prodea waking up with her hair moving as if being blown by a strong wind. Her eyes began to grow into a bloody red glow.

”No... Dark Arts,” whispered the Water Caster, shocked to what she thought is just a myth.

Zeba saw the Water Caster's eye with a glint of fear and is feeling weak shaking. She saw water forming five snake-like figures at each jug and this concerned her too. The snakes then moved hurriedly to the Water Caster and pierced her skin puncturing her neck, chest, arms, thighs and legs. She tried to escape but her futile attempt all turned into vain as the snake glowed and chewed forcefully its way to her insides.

”What's going on!?” shouted Karr as he stood up in agitation. He heard a lot of terrified shouting and fearful screaming which sounded like someone's in an awful sense of excruciating pain and anguish. ”Madam Zeba! What's Going ON!?” he tried shouting again while drawing his humongous sword.

”No, It's O-kay!” stammered Zeba with a broken voice. ”Do not bother us, sentinel.”

”But Madam...”

”Go outside and wait for us there. That's an order.”

Karr, with now hearing the faint sound of what he thought to be the Water Caster's cry for help, swallowed his moral conscience kicking in and obeyed the order of Zeba. He left almost weak as he notices blood now crawling on the floor to his side.

Zeba stood terrified to what she just saw. The Princess she knew doesn't know any dark Magicks, she thought as she tried to convince herself otherwise. The snakes are draining the medic with her life and transferring it to an orb like water bubble that is being drained directly to Prodea's heart.

”H-hh-hel-ph m-e...” whispered the Water Caster with much effort as she can muster for Zeba to hear.

”I'm sorry...” mouthed Zeba uttering no voice, giving no sound but her heavy distracted breathing of tension and stress.

Zeba can just look at her with her eyes crying in pain and misery. She can't do anything about it. She thought the consequence and what would happen to her if the queen found out that she placed the life of a medic over the princess's and that just shattered her inside. Her ambition of being the queen of Nagozul is more important, she thought, and Prodea's the only one who can help her dream come into fruition.

The Princess lost all of her elemental energy in her explosive match with Bakunawa. With that, the energy sustaining her life is at a critical point where she might just sleep for all the remainder of her life or much worse - die. Her body needs energy and there isn't enough spirit within her to fill the gap and revive her that is why the Water Caster performs the Energy Transfer on her to at least minimize the damage. What she didn't know is that Prodea too is a Water Caster with the knowledge of the Dark Arts, the arts that were but a myth to some that they have pointed out to be just a theoretical art. She created a summoning ritual called the first stage of Mephisto's Awakening. The caster knew of this but got mesmerized in confusion seeing that no mortal alive can produce such complicated skill for over thousands of years. The summoning transferred the life of the Water Caster Medic into Prodea, eventually killing her in the process.

A few minutes passed and the snakes began to withdraw to the Medic's body that now looks like a skeleton wrapped in a dry skin. The water bubble that contains the essence of the Water Caster's life is now getting smaller and smaller as Prodea siphoned it to the last drop. She then lay back again to sleep, unconscious as she is, now breathing normally retaining her youthful glow, making her look like a beautiful angel lying dormant in her slumber.

”ZEBA!” she shouted suddenly gasping with much effort to breathe waking up with her eyes flaring wide with fury.

Zeba, seeing Prodea up and about, went hurriedly to her side and grabbed a cup to fill it with water for her to drink. She saw grief in her eyes, shocked as she is in her bed.

”I'M GOING TO KILL THAT SCUM, THAT WRETCHED DEFORMED MONKEY - Arggh,” she exclaimed wrathfully throwing what Zeba was offering away making the water to splash all over her dress.

She tried to stand up only to fall down in agony as she gave every curse there is in the Nagozulian vocabulary, some of it even Zeba couldn't understand.

Zeba felt the darkness eating away her whole body making her weak to the point of dazing off, ignoring her rampage.

”Useless medic, in the end she didn't have enough spirit in her. Maybe that's why she's so inutile and began to start training to be a medic. Heh, no future for you on summoning great waves you Yit'Vit piece of tesh.”

She thought that the depression that Prodea was feeling earlier on was to the fact that she just killed an innocent Nagozulian elemental who was just trying to help her. But that was not the case and she immediately figured out that she did that on purpose. She felt her own conscience now judging her, blaming her for what she didn't do and that really tops all the things she's used to endure when she's with Prodea.

”Zeba!” shouted Prodea that snapped her into her senses. ”Take me to the Palace! I need to get strong! I need to kill that wretched Bakunawa! I'm going to find a way to make him pay for what he did!”

”But Your Highness,” she summoned all her courage to speak and ask a question. ”What did he ever do to you?”

”He put a hex spell on me, moron! As if you didn't know! That garbage managed to curse me probably while I was summoning my dragons, draining all my spiritual energy! I should've known that he was doing that. I kept asking myself what happened and why I'm feeling weak after I left there. Now, in that sleep state, I've found out what that Yit'ard did! Oho-ho-ho, he's a tricky clever bastard!”

”But Grand Princess? The Healer inspected you and found nothing of that sort,” she said with a bitter sensation churning in her gut as she looked at the healer with her swollen dry eyes looking directly at her for mercy.

”You simpleton wouldn't understand it even if I speak slowly to explain it to you! You're as worthless as that trash. It's medical procedure to check hexes first if an unknown problem persists. Even I know that and that's saying much because I'm not even a medic. She deserves to die with her incompetence. If I didn't do what I did I would've died after a few hours! Seriously, too many useless people are alive right now when they should've been dead. Lucky for her she died a hero. It's her honor to offer her life to me.”

Zeba felt a pity for the Nagozulian medic as she remembered her last cry for help looping over and over her memory. She just faked a smile as she nodded in reply.

”Bring Karr before me and tell him to provide me a stretcher so that they can carry me to the Palace,” she dictated speaking hurriedly while grabbing Zeba's robe and pulling a rag to cover her face trying to disguise herself as a Daomagarian. ”And burn this hut to the ground. I don't want to see any trace of this wretched place,”

”But Princess, what about the body?”

”I said BURN-IT-TO-THE-GROUND! How specific can I get?! Of course, you'll be burning the body inside, right? Because you're BURNING IT TO THE GROUND!”

Zeba stood up obviously weak and with great sadness. Prodea noticed this but just ignored it and busied herself in passing off as a Daomagarian so as to not be recognized and be pitied upon by anyone. Zeba grabbed all of Prodea's articles as she was about to finish packing her things.

”No, Zeba. Leave it all there. Incinerate all evidence of my stay here and that includes my robes that have my blood. I don't want anyone to have any idea of what happened to me.”

”Yes, your Highness.”

-------ooO0Ooo-------

”Wohoho Gramps! What's cookin',” yelled Yosh slamming the door, trying to surprise Narra brewing his tea at his room.

”Hahaha, I'm just making my usual evening tea. I like to sip some before eating dinner. D'you want some?”

”Ech, No thanks gramps”

Narra looked at the twins offering a cup of tea to them, but they just smiled shaking their heads in unison. The three went near him with his teapot simmering with an aromatic fragrance that's intoxicatingly sweet and addictive. He has a hole on the ground at the middle of his room where the pot of boiling tea is located. He's sitting there fanning the charcoal that's been making his tea boil with his usual small happy eyes and his wrinkled face, though this didn't do much in revealing his age of seventy-five. In his age, he still looks a little bit on his fifties considering the ripped build, even though he's skinny, and his majestic straight posture that impresses many people, especially the old noble grannies in the Palace. His thinning head is very much obvious even though he's trying to pass it off as a short-cropped cut.

”What's wrong with my tea? Everyone loves my tea. My tea is delicious they say.”

”Well, we'll just enjoy sniffing it. I know it tastes bad, I've tasted it myself last time,” said Yosh smiling after which he gave a loud blow into his whistle dangling on his neck.

”It's bitter, but that's the real taste of tea. The bitter the better they say.”

”No offense Gramps,” said Kayzar smiling, ”we kids are not really into the bitter taste; only old people enjoy eating bitter things.”

”Hahaha! True. But take heed, you'll be looking forward to drink tea sooner than you think. It rejuvenates your spirit and cleanses your body. Just ask Reus. If you're at my age, you'll understand.”

”Whew, I'm really thankful I'm not as old as you Gramps,” said Yosh with a relieved face which led them all to laugh in unison.

Luna and Stella, we're now at the balcony of Narra's room. They noticed them because Luna's been scratching the door trying to take their attention to make them open it for them. Narra smiled as he stood up, still coughing up some laughs, and released the locks which led them to rush in to Yosh's side.

”I sure am missed you guys,” smiled Yosh petting them altogether and hugging them one at a time.

”It's a good thing they understand you Yosh,” laughed Narra sitting down and putting out his fire. ”The study room doesn't permit animals inside. You haven't seen them like in what? Six hours? Eight?”

”I missed them more than they missed me. They're so cuddly I just want to hug them till they pop.”

”You're lucky you can hug an owl,” grumbled Karus petting Luna while Yosh hugs Stella really tight, ”normally, owls don't want to be touched and if someone did then they'll be feeling the sharp wrath of their long solid talons.” And then he looked straight at Stella holding his hands remembering the last time he hugged her tight like Yosh and its consequence.

”Hey, Gramps I've got good news,” jumped Yosh ignoring Karus's sharp eyes directly at Stella. He grabbed food in his mini-sling bag then giving it to his friends feeding them. ”I just aced my exams for today! I'll be joining you all at the Northern Encampment after all!”

Narra began to put up his concerned face as Yosh beamed his wide smile. This concerned Yosh too and began losing his usual happy bragging pose - arms on the side while beaming a big wide smile almost touching his ears.

”Well, congratulations on that achievement Yosh but I heard that the queen gave an order for you to remain here at the Palace for a month,” the three gave a big gasp agitated to what they were hearing. ”It makes it impossible for me to disregard that order and to let you join our traveling party.”

The three began speaking together contesting the idea. A rowdy ruckus ensued with them speaking in unison, whining about how unfair the queen is.

”Hahaha Okay-Okay, I get it but Yosh, seriously, I still can't let you come with us,” they all had their pouting faces with Yosh building up a teary eye. ”BUT,” he hurried continuing which the three noted with a surprise glint of hope, ”I can't really watch over you every minute now can I? And whatever you do will be out of my jurisdiction so technically they can't blame me If, for let say, you ran away from the Palace on your own and meet up with us at the entrance to Kulog Pass while we are camping there at the coordinates that I will leave in my study table hours before we depart, because I'm too old and really... I can't seem to remember cleaning up my mess after a long day. Anyway, if that happens, I'm sure I can't let you go home on your own by then and I will be forced to let you come with. But that's just hypothetical. I know you're not going to do that because you're so obedient and polite.”

Yosh began to smile with all of them feeling relieved agreeing to the plan. Yosh jumped giving Narra a great big hug which led to them losing their balance and falling to the ground.

”You're the best Gramp ever!” Yosh shouted in a deafening bellow.

”Hahaha, don't say that now, I thought you already said that the late King IS the best Gramps. Don't want him to get all jealous now and haunt me.”

”I know but you two are the Best Gramps ever - tying up on the same rank.”

Narra smiled as he moved his teapot to its place which is a standing a little crooked because of the commotion.

”I believe Yosh should be thinking to go to Kudos and Madj now to make some preparations,” Narra continued. ”I think the traveling party that's carrying the supplies to the north changed their initial plan on moving next week and is now doing it at first light on the next day. I think the supplies that the travelers needed are pretty much for themselves and for their traveling companions which are already accounted for so I think he should have his own gear in this journey if he is to sell his hypothetical heist to escape. That's just what I think, but that's just me talking to myself. You know how old men ramble...”