Thread: The Quest (Story)

On top of Death Mountain, it was really hot. The volcano wasn't full yet but, it was getting close. Kotori found a nice place to sit while he waited to see if any of his friends would rescue him. He was crying though the whole time. But, then he noticed something rather interesting, there was a girl. She was watching him and just staring at him. "What do you want?" he asked trying not to sound impolite.

She saw the man crying, he looked to be about her age. She heard him and replied, "Why are you crying? Did someone hurt you?" she needed to help this man.

He waited for a second to reply, "My friends do not like me. I can never make them happy. So, I am going to jump into the volcano unless they come. Unless, unless you think you have a better idea,"

"Oh friend trouble? Yeah, well I recommend not killing yourself over them. Are you good at card games?" she said.

"Wha- yeah, I guess so why do you ask?" He didn't understand the relevancy of the question. So he kinda wondered how she thought it would be appropriate.

"Because, I am going to join a pocket demons, or pokedem, tournament so I can become a pokedem master. But, I need a partner first. Would you like to be my partner?" She liked the way he looked. With a costume he could look like a real pokedem player. "Leave a note here, saying that you ran away and if they care about you then, they will find you somewhere in town,"

She had a brilliant idea and he had heard about pokedem before. He used to be the best at it but, he had to give it up as he got older. "Sure, I will be your partner. As long as you can get me a costume that is. I think I still have my old deck here in my pocket. I always carry it so if I ever need them I have them. Aha there it is," he pulled out a tin box full of pokedem cards. He got out another sheet of paper and wrote on it. It said,

Dear friends (if you can call yourselves that),

I am not jumping in, I found someone who appreciates me. If you actually care about me enough to try to find me somewhere in town. I will not leave any clues, you will just have to find out for yourself where I am if you want to find me.

Sincerely,

Kotori

(P.S. I hope we meet again sometime, the world needs us.)

He put a small rock on it, luckily there was no wind so, it was there perfectly and was easily seen against the brown ground. He then went with the girl he had just met down the other side of the mountain. They started to race each other to see who was faster.

By the time Tink got to the top of the mountain, he was pissed off. He didn't have any other way to describe it. In his head he had four different speeches for the petty little brat (at this point, he couldn't think of him any other way). As he took each agonizing step up the mountain, he was reminded how much he had been hurt over the course of the day.

It was a long walk and each step grew more painful. Each jab of pain made him more angry. It was a viscous circle. By the time he got to the rim of the volcano and saw no one there, he could have pushed Kotori into the depths himself. He was angry at the boy for putting these burdens on people he apparently thought were hi friends. The selfish, petty, ridiculous attitude he struck only filled Tinklington with ire.

To find the rim of the volcano empty, only made Tink want to scream. So he did.

This only confirmed what Tink already knew about the boy- he was fickle and couldn't follow through on anything. He thought himself a leader, but couldn't express a single thought, couldn't follow through, couldn't make a plan and didn't care about the trouble and pain he caused others. By the time Tink found the note, he was spitting mad. He wondered who Kotori could have found on the rim of a volcano in the middle of the night. Probably someone out to use him. What sort of sane person just lollygags on the rim of a volcano waiting for people.

This didn't bode well. Likely Kotori would eventually come back and try to get this other person to join them. Hell, every person the boy met was apparently worthy of joining them. A cannibalistic monster who tried to kill him (twice), a crazy person on the edge of a volcano- Tink included himself in that grouping then - and an inventor who hates to kill or harm and is unnecessary to the group.

He was hot, grimy, sore and emotionally weary. He sat on a rock for several long minutes staring into the volcano.

He was glad there wasn't a cap on the magma, at least that meant it wouldn't explode since there wasn't enough of a build up of pressure. If the village wanted to be safe from a lava flow, all they had to do was build a channel to direct the flow. It was common enough. Certainly a pocket of gas could escape, but there wasn't much to be done about that. Carbon Monoxide would kill you before you knew what happened and it had no smell, so at least it wouldn't be the worst way to go.

Tink shook himself out of his scientific mind and back to the matter at hand. He looked at the note and folded it, placing it into his breast pocket. As he did, he realized he smelled of sulfur and sweat...mostly sulfur. How would he explain that to Kiylo, he didn't know.

Well, at least on his walk up here he found water.

Standing, he attempted to dust himself off, but the sweat from the heat made that impossible. He started back down the mountain, limping angrily on his very newly healed leg. The thought of that, just made him all too aware of the beast man who had broken it and tried to kill him and then stolen his house and family out of their lives.