Having made it through the mountains with the help of the swordsman Gawfy, Eckhart walked slowly through a field of flowers in Darken Vei. It was mid morning, and the dew was beginning to dry. Eckhart's arm was still sore from the fight with the trolls and he was looking for arnica flowers, which he knew helped with muscular pain. His eyes lit up when he saw a patch of yellow flowers, but when he bent down to get a closer look, he found something much more interesting. A small black bottle, about the size of Eckhart's thumb, containing some sort of sludgy liquid inside. Eckhart took the cap off the bottle and smelled it, and quickly recoiled when he found it smelled like seal piss.
"What the hell is this?" Eckhart thought.
Taking a generous sample of the arnica flowers and putting them in his bag, he began to head in the direction of the inn he was staying at.
Kino Vanden yawned and rubbed the back of her neck. She had fallen asleep at her makeshift workbench again. Sunlight poured in through the dusty window, illuminating the fruits of last night's labor. Wyrdroot, extract of rhinin ore and yerba leaves had been meticulously added, one by one, to the vibrant, honey-colored arnica petals she had picked and ground up the previous day. Diluted with spring water, the concoction was a potent anti-arthritic. A dozen bottles of it glistened amber in the mid-morning sunlight.
Once she had rearranged her workspace into some semblance of tidiness and donned the robes which rounded out her carefully chosen "plague doctor" ensemble, she left the room she was lodging in and locked the door behind her. Her outlandish yet distinctly recognizable countenance would draw curious customers to the streetside shop she would set up, and Darken Vei's large demographic of elderly people would ensure that her anti-arthritis potions would sell like hotcakes. "Everybody's gotta make a living, somehow."
As she walked out of the inn, wares in hand, something felt off. It was... it was her left leg. It felt too light. She knelt down to check the straps wrapped around her breeches and found a gap in the row of everglass phials which lined the outside of her left thigh. "Fuck." That was where she kept the adrenalite brews. Adrenalite brew was damned expensive, and now she was short a bottle. She knew she had it when she took inventory yesterday morning...
Eckhart walked briskly down the the street, absentmindedly fiddling with the bottle he had found in his hands. He was considering going to the market stalls in town, to see if anyone was selling more bottles of this stuff. All of a sudden the bottle began to heat up in his hands, burning his skin. Eckhart only just managed to throw the bottle away from him before it exploded, knocking him backwards and leaving a smoldering crater in the street. As people around him began to panic, Eckhart winced as he discovered a piece of glass shrapnel lodged in his shoulder.
First came the thundering boom, then came the tide of panicking townsfolk. Kino swept up the blanket on which she had carefully laid out her wares for the day, springing to her feet and turning in the direction that would take her as far away from the explosion as possible. "Discretion is the better part of valor," she told herself the mantra that had seen her out of so many hairy situations in the past.
Kino was ready to join the fleeing crowd when something caught her eye. The plume of smoke rising from the explosion site was a sickly shade of green. Looks like somebody had found her adrenalite for her.
Sighing, the wandering apothecary turned back towards the origin of the detonation. A single explosion could be caused by anything, and thus fall squarely into the category of "not her problem." But if the hallucinations started to set in amongst the townsfolk, all eyes would fall upon her. Sighing again, she set off.
Eckhart finally managed to pull the glass from his shoulder, and quickly began to regrow the cells in his shoulder. As he was doing this, he saw a person in an old plague mask walking towards him. Eckhart had read enough old medical books to understand the implications of this. "Oh shit" he thought, "maybe the fumes from this are toxic, that's why he's in the mask. Did he know about this bomb?"
With this in mind, Eckhart stood up, cupped one hand over his mouth and nose, and drew his hammer.
Kino approached the young man cautiously. A local? No, definitely not from Serendipity. Hallucinating? Quite possibly. There seemed to be a frantic gleam in his eyes. There also seemed to be a nasty-looking warhammer clenched in his hand. Options? No, scratch that. Options that won't see my skull smashed in or on trial for homicide?
The apothecary's mind raced as she slowly approached the youth, hoping to speak with him and make more sense of things. Kino regretted her choice of clothing for the day - the sinister robes that served to attract customers now made her into a grim reaper gliding through the pale green mist. She really hoped that he wasn't hallucinating yet.
"Um, stop right there!" Eckhart said nervously. If this was the bomber, than Eckhart stood little chance of defeating him. "Is this your doing?" Eckhart realized what a dumb question that was halfway through saying it.
"Wait" he thought, "I did this, didn't I?"
"Why are you in a plague mask? Are these fumes dangerous?"
He's coherent. Shaken, but coherent. Scratch one immediate worry. Kino took a longer look at the youth, slowly halting in her tracks and coming to two conclusions about him.
Okay. He's kind of scrawny for that warhammer, but nobody in this spellchucker-ridden country carries good old-fashioned steel if they can't use it. So he can fight. Which means he can help me clean up this mess. And he's a foreigner. These backwater hicks aren't too fond of foreigners. Which means he's also a scapegoat if we don't clean up fast enough. Two reasons to keep him around. Now let's just hope it doesn't come to that second one.
"The fumes won't hurt you, but they'll get you paranoid. Make you see things." Kino continued, trying her best to sound authoritative and reassuring. "I'm here to help. I need you to hold your breath for a little bit, and I need you to give me that scarf. Can you do that for me?"
Eckhart nodded, and handed Kino the scarf. "Are you a healer too? That's a doctor's mask."
"I make potions," she replied, her husky voice rattling and echoing out from behind her mask. "Some of them heal. Others explode and make people go psycho. Best to hold your breath," she chided.
Kino deftly produced a phial of green liquid from the folds of her robes, and began carefully pouring it onto the scarf. She worked with precise and practiced movements, emptying its contents onto the scarf then handing it back to Von Musel.
"It goes over your nose and mouth. Sorry if it smells, but it'll help."
Eckhart tied the scarf over his mouth and nose, and immediately gagged. Clenching his teeth and powering through the urge to vomit, he turned towards the masked man and was about to demand answers as to why he had left a chemical weapon lying around for somebody to find. Instead, he saw a large man with a crazed expression rushing at the plague doctor screaming something about Essyrni merchants. "Look out!" Eckhart yelled as he moved to intercept the man, warhammer raised.
Caught off guard, the masked alchemist narrowly avoided the madman's meaty fist. Frothing with the rage of the insane, he had put too much force into his swing and stumbled forwards when his punch failed to connect. Kino pivoted, only to take a flailing elbow to the stomach. Doubled over and gasping, the potion-seller saw the man regain his balance and turn towards her with murder in his eyes.
Seeing the masked doctor keel over in pain, Eckhart lashed out at the raving man with his hammer. It was a glancing blow to the man's thigh, but as the man had no armor it should have been enough to drop him.
Should have been enough. Eckhart's eyes widened as the man shrugged off the blow and advanced towards him instead.
Kino caught her breath and regained her composure. Now unfazed by the lunatic's roaring, she calmly reached into the depths of her robes, running her fingers over the row of hollow everglass knives holstered to her side. "Third, fourth, fifth one from the top. Here we go. Averaxian-grade sedative."
Drawing the throwing dagger and leisurely taking aim, the masked apothecary held the everglass in her bare hand, waiting until her body heat had amply warmed and softened the blade. With a flick of her wrist, the knife spun towards the madman and embedded itself into his back.
She didn't have time to watch the tranquilizing elixir within the hollow knife drain into the man's bloodstream. Hearing more screaming from behind her, Kino turned around to face two more unfortunates who had been caught downwind of the explosion.
"Let the foreign youth play with the crazy until the tranq kicks in. These two are mine."
Eckhart watched as the masked man thew a knife into the lunatic's back. It didn't seem to do anything though, and he was soon preoccupied with two more crazies. Eckhart barely managed to dodge a flurry a blows the man sent his way, and stumbled sidestepped to the man's left. Hoping he didn't injure the man too badly, Eckhart swung the hammer at his ribcage. There was a sickening crunch, and the man fell to the ground.
Hidden behind the beaked mask, Kino's dainty lips curled up into a predatory smile. She felt the surge of energy, the rush of vigor and the giddy high of invincibility coursing through her veins. The pudgy man and middle-aged housewife coming at her would make good sport.
"Stay cool, damn it!"
She was starting to get jacked on the adrenalite vapor, and she should know better. Her mask wasn't 100% airtight for reasons obvious, and the slow-burning mixture of herbs in its beak hadn't been prepared to entirely counteract high-potency stimulants. Kino Vanden would let herself enjoy downing the outmatched couple, then treat herself with the same odorous tonic she had given the foreigner.
But for now, fun.
She grabbed a nearby broom, snapping the brush off and then taking an offensive stance with her impromptu quarterstaff.
After he knocked down the big guy, Eckhart went to help with the two other drugged citizens. However, a voice behind him caused him to panic.
"Stop right there! Drop your weapons and come with us!"
It was the town guard. They had obviously mobilized when they heard the explosion go off, and were only just arriving at the scene now. Luckily for Eckhart and Kino, an adrenalized shopkeeper began to run towards the guards, distracting them. Eckhart began to run in the direction of the inn, dragging Kino behind him. He didn't know the masked man, but he wouldn't get the answers he wanted if he was apprehended by the guards.
Kino laughed gleefully as she braced the broomstick between both hands and used it to turn aside the firewood-hatchet the housewife swung at her. She laughed harder as she turned and sunk the dull end of the shattered broomstick into the man's ample stomach. She began to bring her weapon into an overhand swing down onto the housewife's clavicle when something caught her wrist firmly from behind. The giddy tonic-concocter stiffened the fingers of her free hand into a speartip to jab this new attacker in the throat, only to be met by the icy gaze of the foreigner.
Something in his glare made Kino pause for half a moment, just long enough for him to yank her away from the battered duo that had assailed her. Out of the fight and in control of her senses again, she found herself being pulled along like a petulant child by the man.
"What're... You doing?"
"That mask must be cutting off the oxygen to your brain" Eckhart said, "Trust me, I'm a doctor. You have all the symptoms"
Arriving at the inn, he takes Kino to his room and closes the door behind them. Eckharts room is mostly empty, as he hasn't unpacked his things from his bag. There is a handwritten journal on the nightstand, flipped open to a page on arnica flowers. "Now that I've saved you from being arrested, you're going to tell me why you left a bomb in a patch of flowers. Some kind of resource control? Arnica flowers aren't exactly common, perhaps you wanted to be the only supplier?"
"At least, that's the only reason I can think of that makes sense" thought Eckhart. He himself thought the idea was a bit convoluted.
Kino began to think of pointing out all the logical flaws in the youth's accusation, then thought better of it.
"I dropped it," she simply said.
Knowing that that explanation made more sense than the word salad he had come up with, Eckhart began to go red in the face. "Oh, uh, um, ok." Eckhart picked up what few items he had lying around and began putting them in his bag. "It might be a good idea to, uh, leave town. The guards will be looking for us. My name is Eckhart by the way. Eckhart Von Musel."
"Someday I'm going to be the best healer in the world" he added. There was no emotion behind this last statement, as if it was a guaranteed fact that he would, in fact, be the best healer in the world.
"What is your name?"
Unsure of whether or not the "world's greatest healer" remark was a result of the adrenalite, Kino simply took Von Musel's outstretched hand and shook it firmly.
"Well met then, Eckhart. Kino Vandern - alchemist, apothecary and drifter extraordinaire." Withdrawing her hand, she continued. "And agreed. I've seen quite enough alchemy and not quite enough drifting today."
Pride still wounded by the fact that she'd been rescued by someone who looked young enough to be her son, Kino casually added an afterthought. "Sorry about the diarrhea you'll be having," she lied. "Manticore urine does a great job stopping adrenalite gas, but it'll give you a nasty case of the shits. Nasty, I tell you."
It was worth it to see the boy's face go a brighter shade of red as he looked at the scarf he'd been breathing through up until a few moments ago.
"My room's upstairs. I'll be back with my belongings."
Eckhart was waiting by the door for Kino to come back down. Outside he could hear the guards in a panic. Apparently some of them had inhaled the adrenalite and were now fighting among themselves. "Good. That will provide cover for us to slip out unnoticed." Eckhart did not want to be known as criminal. He knew that his parents were heartbroken when his sister became a murderer, and he did not want them to have to go through that again.
Kino ignored the distant cries of rage and echoes of steel on steel as she carefully dismantled her makeshift laboratory. Phials, bottles, beakers and flasks went into her traveler's backpack, as did all of the everglass knives, darts and arrowheads holstered in the straps covering her body. She shed her robes and bandoliers, packing them into her bedroll, which she then fastened on top of the backpack.
Now standing in a midnight blue chiffon chemise, cream breeches, tanned leather boots and hook-nosed plague mask, Kino inhaled deeply. Holding her breath, she unfastened her metal facade and gently laid it on the bedside table. Taking a small silk pouch containing the same aromatic herbs and spices as the ones in her mask's beak, she pulled its drawstrings open and gently looped them behind her ears, tying them together beneath her wavy flaxen hair. The open pouch dangled beneath her nose and she began to breathe again. The open air burned at her ravaged lungs, but the pouch made it bearable at the very least.
Looking into the bedside mirror, Kino's gaze was met by a sultry pair of deep violet eyes framed by wavy pale-blonde bangs. High cheekbones, a petite nose, delicate lips and pointed chin rounded out the reflection staring back at her. She smiled contentedly to herself.
"I've still got it."
She pulled a cream-colored scarf to match her breeches out of the traveler's pack, wrapping it around her nose and mouth. The final thing to go in her traveler's backpack was her gasmask. She held it in both hands, fondly gazing into its empty black eyes, for it was just as much a part of herself as her arms or legs were. A second face behind which she could safely and painlessly exist. Without it she was more than naked. Pressing its cold steel forehead to her own for luck, she silently tucked it away and stole down the stairs.
"Eckhart, let's move."
Eckhart turned around when he heard Kino's voice, but saw only a woman in a blue shirt. He looked behind the woman, hoping to see Kino's distinctive mask, only for the woman to clear her throat impatiently. Cringing at the painful noise she had just made, Eckhart went red in the face again as he realized Kino had likely been a woman this entire time. "Uh, after you?" he said as he held the door open for her. Eckhart's parents had always taught him to be chivalrous towards women, but somehow he felt that it was an unnecessary gesture that Kino wasn't likely to appreciate.
Offering only a brusque grunt of affirmation, Kino swept through the door. Beneath her scarf, however, a slight smile of amusement formed at the innocent awkwardness of the gesture.
The streets were desolate, most of the townsfolk having evacuated. Cries of pain and rage echoed from the distance. The green gas had dissipated. Baskets, purses, handbags and other valuables dotted the streets, discarded in the initial panic. The first people to overcome their fears and moral inhibitions would soon have a field day. Eckhart and Kino would be long gone by then.
Striding aside Kino, Eckhart's eyes darted from side to side in search of danger. The alchemist kept her eyes forward and her posture composed, though she was no less on guard.
Eckhart walked nevously beside Kino, silently praying they did not get cought. A couple times a guard would run past them towards the scene of the explosion, but they never stopped to interrogate them as Eckhart feared. Eckhart noticed that Kino handled fear better then he did, and felt a brief moment of jelousy. Eckhart's nerves had never been good, and he envied those who could handle pressure better than he could. Without any further incidents the two made it to the edge of town.
As they neared a gate in the stone walls that ringed the hamlet, Eckhart was pulled out of his reveries by a sharp and ugly rasping. "Wait!" wheezed Kino.
Standing serenely, she closed her eyes and began to listen. Having lived nigh on two decades in a mask which provided less-than-stellar peripheral vision, Kino Vanden had slowly become accustomed to using her other senses to help navigate. And now, beyond the tall stone barrier, rang the barely audible yet unmistakable clang of armored footsteps. Lots of them.
"City guard? Provencal militia? Serendipity's army...? No no no, that's the wrong question. Not 'who?' but 'why?'" Kino chewed her lower lip as she pondered. "They haven't entered the town yet. They might be waiting for reinforcements. Or perhaps initiating a lockdown? A quarantine? Doesn't matter. What matters is getting past them without getting my pack checked. Whoever they are, they aren't gonna be in a very 'innocent until proven guilty' kinda mood. Not that we exactly fall into the 'innocent' category anyways. Whatever. Time to get to work."
Eckhart watched the strange woman snap to life and immediately set her pack down. She sifted through her belongings, pulling out a recognizable bottle, roughly the size of his thumb. She uncorked it, recorked it, shook it vigorously and then set it on the ground. Oh no.
"What the hell is that!?" he demanded. Kino looked at him quizzically, almost as though she'd forgotten he was there.
"A distraction. What's it look like?"
"It looks like another explosion! It looks like more people going psycho! It looks like a serious... a serious crime! Are you out of your frickin' mind?!?"
"I wasn't the last time I checked. Look, Ecks, the other side of that wall's crawling with the authorities. Some kind of lockdown, most likely. We won't be getting out of here easy."
"How could you possibly know that?!?"
"Close your eyes and listen for yourself."
"But the explosion!"
"See anyone around here to get hurt?"
"And the gas!"
"Wind's picked up. It'll dissipate."
"And if it doesn't!?"
"They'll have air magi."
"But-"
Kino stood up and looked him straight in the eyes. "Eckhart Von Musel, I need your help. I need your trust. Can I trust you?"
The right words momentarily escaped him. She didn't give him time to find them. "I need you to talk to them. To buy us time. If I try to... speak, with them, well, it'll just raise more questions" she croaked out bitterly, then continued.
"From the sound of it they've rounded up the townsfolk. Talk us past the guards. We hide in the crowd. When this explodes, we break for the woods." Kino's eyes intensely locked onto his own. He could almost feel them boring a hole in the back of his skull.
"I'll ask you again, Eckhart Von Musel. Can I trust you?"
Eckhart had to admit, Kino could be intense when she wanted to be, even without the creepy mask. "Yes... yes, uh, I'll go talk to them." Eckhart walked through the gate to the other side of the wall, mentally preparing himself for what he was about to do next. Eckhart realized that this would look better if he was crying, so he try to think of something upsetting.
"You may never see your sister again."
No, that was too depressing. It didn't move him to tears, it just made him feel empty inside. Instead, he focused on the fact that he may have killed that man with his warhammer back in the plaza. Feelings of guilt overwhelmed him, and he could feel tears begin to swell up in his eyes. "Perfect."
Eckhart rushed through the gate, sobbing hysterically. "They're all gone!" he screamed. "All those bodies... the severed limbs... What are we going to do!" His frantic crying distracted the guards just long enough, and from behind the wall he could hear another explosion, far away from where Kino had been a second ago. He could screams too, but he desperately tried to ignore those. The guards rushed to the source of the chaos, and Kino slipped through the gate not a moment later.
"Lets go!" she said, and, perhaps against his better judgement, Eckhart followed her.