The Legend of Maylani

== Preface ==
(To add)
== Chapter I : A Strange New Land ==
On the quest searching for her father, Maylani woke up one morning to a bed made of leaves and twigs, inside the cave on the side of a mountain, somewhere in the forest near the province of Lisaem Nyros. Her body was experiencing slight soreness partially due to the stiffness of her makeshift bed, and more so, on the fact that she had spent the past few nights building a sailing dinghy from nothing but bits and pieces she could find in the woods. Maylani took a quick moment to look outside the cave before starting to pack up the important things that she would need for her voyage. She then relocated them to the dinghy and piled it beside what seemed to be a workbench that was sitting next to where her sailboat was. After a few trips back and forth from the cave to the boat, Maylani finally put all her belongings on board. And only after then, that she was set to sail.
Her dinghy was placed on some sizable logs, which allowed her to push it directly down to the river stream on her side. Even so, it took her quite a while to actually push it down to the stream. When the boat was finally on the river, she quickly jumped onto it and took a moment to breathe as well as to stabilize, before she started to row it along the canal.
After a good amount of time sailing down the river, Maylani found herself surrounded by a large body of water that she assumed to be an ocean. Maylani looked in her barrel just to discover that she had forgotten her hand-drawn map on her workbench. She sighed in mild frustration and lightly slapped her face with both her hands. 
“Let’s see... There’s the sun. I don’t think it’s noon yet. So, that would be... East.” She pointed at the sun, speaking to herself, “Father said that we should not go to the west, so I guess I will be heading this way then.” She recalled, then adjusted the sail against the wind and set her course east.
Her sailboat was relatively true to the path that she set, and she spent the entire day sailing to find civilization. When it was nightfall, Maylani spotted a dim, flickering light in the distance. She quickly grabbed the oars and started rowing with full hope in her heart. 
When the boat was approaching the shore, Maylani saw that there were people coming toward her with weapons in their hands. She sensed that they were threats, and as a result from the worry, she desperately attempted to row her boat back away from the shore.
Harpoon spears were thrown at her dinghy, flying toward her in full stride. “Where do you think you are going? Just stay right where you are.” One of the bandits yelled and started to reel the boat toward the shore using the ropes that were attracted to the spears.
Maylani carefully reached for her crossbow and quickly pulled the trigger as soon as she saw an opening. The arrow does not stay its course and went further left than where she was aiming at.
“Hey, are you fucking deaf? Come down here right now and show me both of your hands!”
Maylani did not respond, as she did not know what to do. She slowly stepped out of the boat with both her hands up. Then, suddenly, she collapsed on the ground.
“What the hell?” A hooded bandit exclaimed “Go check on her; we can’t lose a good young slave like this.” 
One of the bandits walked toward her, where, all of a sudden, Maylani swiftly stood up and put her dagger through the bandit's chest. Maylani had only one eye open, and the eye was glowing in an ominous red. There were also some odd marks that appeared on her left cheek as well. She then looked at the other bandits, dead in their eyes.
“Johnathan!” yelled the bandit, then turned to other bandits in the group, raising his voice, “Shoot her at once.”
The group of bandits shot a rain of arrows toward her. However, as the speeding arrows were approaching her, she zoomed toward the bandits, swiftly dodged all the arrows, and slit all of their throats in a split second. She flicked her dagger, forcefully, before putting it back on the inside of her left shoe. Then proceeded to spit blood on the already bloody sand. After that, Maylani got back to the boat, pushed it off the shore with her brute force, hopped back on, and resumed her journey.
As the sun kissed the right side of her face, Maylani woke up the next morning on the shoreline of nowhere. Her eyes were back to normal and the marks disappeared. She also did not remember anything from last night. Shortly after Maylani woke up, she stretched herself a little bit before standing up. 
“Ow ow ow…” Maylani cried as she slowly pulled her neck to the sides, then said to herself, “what happened last night…?” while tightly squeezing her right shoulder. She then brought her right arm across her body and held it with her left to ease the pain. Maylani started to wander along the shoreline looking for her stuff as well as her sailboat. In just a short amount of time, her wrecked dinghy was in her sight. So, she quickly ran toward it at once.
“Wha– What happened here..?” Maylani exclaimed breathlessly, as she saw the boat. She paused for a moment to catch her breath, and began to examine the wreck, “What are these spear things..? That’s weird.” She said, then stepped over a wooden chunk of the broken rowboat. “I’m confident I would’ve definitely remembered if someone was to throw a spear at me,” She added, picking up one of the harpoon spears.  
“I saved us.” The fox demon showed itself to Maylani and spoke to her.
“Oh.. it’s you again. This is just perfect.” She replied, sarcastically.
“Are you deaf? I saved us. You would have already been a slave if I had not stepped in.” 
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Maylani stepped inside the wrecked ship and started searching inside the barrel that she had brought with her. She tried to pull out her dagger from her right shoe in order to pry the barrel open, but the fox interrupted her.
“It’s in your left shoe,” it said.
“What?”
“The knife, it’s in your left shoe,” the fox repeated.
“When did it get in there?”
“I—”
“You know what? I don’t really care,” Maylani continued, she pulled the dagger out and immediately stopped as she noticed a smear of dark red substance on the dagger. “What is this...? Is this blood?” 
“Like I told you, I saved us.” The fox repeated once again, it started to sound a bit irritated, “Have you been listening to what I had been saying at all?”
Maylani also got a little bit heated after hearing that. She then replied, “Save us how? Just tell me exactly what happened. You kept repeating that you saved us. Save us by doing what exactly?” 
“I don’t know, I just taught bandits some lessons.”
“What Bandits? I don’t remember ever meeting anyone last night,” She replied, then went on, “What happened? Did you hurt them?”
“Maybe.”
“Just answer me, you stupid fox ghost.”
“Well, in my defense, they were literally throwing spears at you.” 
"Right.... And how exactly did you do that, huh? I can’t even get to you, how would you be able to hurt them," Maylani said, then swung her dagger at the fox’s face.
“Don’t worry about it, I just can.” The fox replied, dodging her dagger.
“Yeah, right. If you really want to help, just be a doll and fly around for me.”
“Really? You want me, a powerful spirit, a literal superior being with beyond intelligence and divine abilities, to be a pet parrot for a mortal?” He said then, immediately added, “and quit swinging that thing in my face, it’s annoying!” 
“Can’t you just do that? If you really want to ‘save’ me, just fly around for a bit, there could be a settlement nearby.”
“No, I’m not doing that, just walk straight, I guess— I don’t know, just go straight, you can walk straight, right?” 
Maylani made a face, squinting her eyes, then asked, “what does that supposed to mean?” 
“‘Cause you don’t have any sense of direction, the ‘compass’ you draw on your map doesn’t even point north,” The fox explained. 
“Yeah, yeah, and you don’t even have a body,” Maylani replied, then rubbed the knife to a piece of clothes she found at the shipwreck, then proceeded to use it to finally pry the barrel open.
“It’s all gonna be wet,” the fox stated, promptly.
“I know I just need to get this one thing,” She said, then started to take all the wet bread and potatoes out of the barrel. And after strugglingly navigating its way through them, her hand reached the bottom of the barrel. “Got it!” She exclaimed, then excitedly pulled it out.
“Really? It was rather anticlimactic, I was hoping for something else.” The fox was disappointed. 
Maylani looked at the fox then explained, “Oh this? This is a fork, okay? F-O-R-K, it’s a thing civilized people used for eating.”
The fox made a face, “I know what a fork is, you imbecile child.”
“Then what’s up with all the fuss?” Maylani said it with a hint of mockery. 
“It’s– okay, nevermind,” The fox replied, and went on, “I’m not gonna be your personal flying jester.”
“Aw… but you were doing such a great job at it though.” 
The fox did not respond to her.
“Okay, we’re done here,” Maylani said, then put the fork in her dress pocket, “So, we’re going this way, right?” She pointed and turned to the fox but it had already disappeared from her sight. “Oh, okay, I guess it’s just me again,” she expressed, stood up, then brushed off the sand on her dress. 
The fox’s suggestion led Maylani into the forest filled with pines, decorated with shrubs, and bushes along the tree lines. Patches of grass grew in spots, where most of the ground was covered with dry leaves and broken twigs. The cloud moved above her head, letting the sun shone her grace down through the dancing branches. Gentle breeze whispered spring, a subtle scent of sweetness and resinous kissed her face. Maylani’s body intuitively slowed down as she proceeded along the evergreen scenery. 
But the moment of peace was broken, as her stomach growled. “Alright, alright, I hear you,” she looked down to her tummy, and expressed. She then looked far and wide, searching for something that would extend her expiring peace. “Aha!” She exclaimed as she spotted several bright red dots on the shrubs just right ahead. Excitedly, she began to skip to it.
As Maylani approached the plant, the fox showed itself and stopped her, saying, “That’s poisonous.”
“Huh?”
“That’s a holly, it’s poisonous.”
“No, I am pretty sure that’s a teaberry.”
“Right… I can assure you that it’s not at all a teaberry.”
“No, I’ve seen them, these are teaberries for sure.”
“How sure are you?”
“What?”
“How sure are you that it’s really a teaberry.”
“I don’t know– seems like it.”
“Have you ever seen an actual teaberry plant?”
“No, but the fruit looks roughly the same”
“Roughly.”
“Yea…?”
The fox shook its head, “Help yourself then.”
“Alright,” She replied, and put a berry in her mouth with no hesitation. She then chewed on it, and immediately spat it out, “yuck, that’s not it, ugh,” she exclaimed in disgust.
“Believe me now?”
“It’s so bitter, what is this?”
“It’s a holl–”
“Yes, a holly, right, I heard you,” Maylani interrupted.
The fox made a face while Maylani was licking that side of her hand. “What on earth are you doing?” The fox asked.
“It’s bitter.”
“And…?”
“So, I’m getting its taste out of my tongue, what’s complicated here?” She replied, licking her hand, adding, “I thought you are the one with superior intelligence, here.”  
“It’s uh… nevermind.” 
The silence filled the atmosphere briefly before Maylani went on and broke it, “So what’s your name?”
“Huh?” The fox made a face, then replied.
“You heard me,” Maylani said, then repeated, “what’s your name? I’m Maylani.”
“Yeah, I know your name.”
“Right…” Maylani squinted her eyes and added, “But I don’t know you.”
“Well, I’d like to keep it that way, thank you very much,” the fox expressed.
“Wha— Ok then, suit yourself,” Maylani said with mild frustration, “I was hoping we can just get to know each other a little bit you know, to make this more bearable since we don’t know how long this journey is going to be.” She then went on, “but since you want to act like a baby then that’s fine.” 
“I am— hm…” The fox was hesitant, but it still went on, “I’ve lost the exact count already but I’d say I am around 330 something already.”
“330 years old?” Maylani exclaimed, “You’re joking.”
“I wish,” The fox replied, “I wasn’t always like this you know, I was once a human.”
“Huh?”
“Yes, I was born in Jaria.”
“Interesting,” Maylani expressed, then went on, “Where?”
“Inrai.”
“Nice, Houseki,” Mayalni replied, putting her right hand on her chest.
“Houseki?” The fox turned to her and made a face. It then went on, “You mean Shinseki?”
“I am pretty sure it’s ‘Hou’ that means ‘precious things,’” Maylani replied.
“That’s weird; never heard of Houseki before.”
"Well, it exists, alright?" Maylani replied, then turned to the fox, asking, “So, what happened?”
“‘What happened,’ what?”
“You know, how did you end up like this?”
“It’s uh…” The fox was hesitant, then sighed, “it’s pretty complicated.”
“You can tell me.” 
The fox gave Maylani a look, but it did not respond.
“What?”
“Don’t worry about it,” The fox said, “just keep straight, the faster you find your family, the faster you can get rid of me.”
Maylani shook her head in disbelief then replied, “Sure thing...” 
== Chapter II : The Witch and The Beast ==
As the two ventured deeper into the pine woods, Maylani and the fox spirit encountered two individuals who were also roaming the forest. Maylani quickly went to hide behind one of the huge pine trees, and shushed the fox. She only got a quick glimpse of them. One was a woman in all black, with a long cloak, and the other was a beastfolk with a gigantic long sword that was almost double the size of that woman.
“Do you think that they are to be trusted?” Maylani whispered to the fox, covering her mouth.
“No, what? Look at that woman, we should just run away.”
“Who is that behind the tree? Show yourself at once,” said the woman in black, confidently. “Could you please go look behind that tree for me, Osborne.”
“Certainly.”
“Do I run or do I just walk to them?” Maylani asked the spirit, indecisively, “What should I do? They could be a help.” 
“Run, just run, you dumb human, I don’t trust them.” The fox raised its voice. 
“You don’t have to be afraid, dear; we are not threats.” The woman stated, her voice softened.
As a response, Maylani slowly came out of hiding with both her hands up in the air. 
“What the fuck are you doing? Get away from them! This is exactly the opposite of what you should do,” said the fox, raising its voice even louder.
“Shut up,” Maylani let out a sharp whisper. 
“Huh, it’s just a girl…,” The woman paused briefly, then continued, “what are you doing out here alone, darling?” 
“I.. I am trying to find a civilization, so I can get back to my family.” Maylani replied with slight hesitation.
“And...?” 
Maylani made a face, then replied, “and?” She tilted her head to her left slightly, and went on “No, that would be it… I think that’s all I must do, people at home would’ve been worried sick.” 
“I sense something troubling you, child,” added the witch, “A spirit of a sort.”
“Wait, how..? What..? Did you see it as well?” Maylani pointed to the fox spirit beside her with her thumb, then whispered loudly with her hand covering her mouth as usual. 
“You know I can hear you, right?” The fox interrupted, rolling its eyes.
“Shush!” Maylani hushed the fox. 
“What kind of spirits are they?” The witch looked at Maylani through her eyelashes. 
“It’s a ‘familiar,’ I think.”
“So, it’s a demon.”
“Wow, rude.” The fox expressed
“Interesting,” expressed the witch, “Come, I’ll explain the details of it at my hut, and just so you know, you will have to get rid of him as quickly as possible. The demons are rather very dangerous.”
“I don’t like her; Let’s just leave.”
“Shush, she is offering us help,” Maylani turned to the fox, and went on, “Maybe after this you won’t have to follow me around anymore; wouldn’t that be good?” She explained.
"Is... Is the demon talking to you?" The witch asked
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You can just call me Jaruwan, and this is Osborne,” She let out a slight smile and pointed to the beastfolk. 
“I see, Miss Jaruwan and Sir Osborne.” She pointed her index finger at them respectively, then went on introducing herself, putting her hand over her chest, “my name is Maylani." She then smiled.
“Maylani… What a wonderful name, what is it, is it Franks?” Jaruwan asked.
“Yes, have you been?”
“Been to what? To Frankia? Yeah, a couple of times, why?”
Maylani sighed, and replied, “it’s nothing, I just miss home.” 
“We’ll get you home, don’t worry,” Jaruwan said, then went on, guiding her forward, “Come-come, this way, follow me.”
While navigating through the woods, the party moved past a few trees stumped and some markings. The path seemed to Maylani like it was man-made. Then out of curiosity, she asked, “Do you know which country we are in?” 
“Hm?” Jaruwan looked back over her shoulder to Maylani.
“Where are we? Are we in Poloska?” 
“Oh, no, we’re on an island just outside of Xyrueli,” Jaruwan replied.
“Xyrueli? Where is that..? South?”
“Mhm, the south from the Mal ocean.”
“That’s odd, I thought I was going east…” Maylani thought to herself, mumbling under her breath, “but I guess, Xyrueli is still in the right direction?”
Jaruwan looked at Maylani from the corner of her left eye, saying, “Don’t worry too much, dear. We’ll find a way back to Frankia.”
“Mhm,” Maylani expressed, letting out a slight nod.    
Shortly after, the party was approaching a hut with worn out fences in the heart of this dense forest. The logs supporting the weight of the house were weather-beaten, time-worn, and moss-grown; they were groaning under the pressure of fleeting time. The walls outside of the hut were decorated with twisted branches and creeping vines. And behind the shadow of the small house, laid an almost colorless willow. The wind gusted, perhaps to welcome them back home, yet the sky darkened as if she knew that something was about to go south. Leaves rustled from all directions like something was moving through the woods and was keeping its wide eyes on them. A flock of ravens nestled near themselves close to her weathered chimney. The time almost stood still as Maylani let the sombering gray scenery sink in, a sense of discontent progressively settled himself on her shoulder. He was brushed off immediately as Jaruwan approached her from behind, and almost startled Maylani. 
“I know it’s a mess but there’s nothing to be alarmed,” Jaruwan explained, tapped Maylani on her shoulder, and went on, “It’s just that I haven’t been here for a while, so the place was just left unattended.”
“Oh.” Maylani exclaimed, “That’s okay, I’ve seen my dad’s basement, this is far from it,” She smiled hesitantly as Jaruwan walked in front of her. She noticed a dark piece of wood on Jaruwan’s left hand. 
Jaruwan looked over her shoulder back to Maylani, and asked her, “Have you ever met an actual real-life witch?” 
But before Maylani could answer, Jaruwan swung her wand.
Immediately, everything began to move. The dead brushes, the tree branches, and the broken-down fences began to dance as if they were coming to life. It looked as if Jaruwan had turned back the time; the hut that was crumbling and practically abandoned just a second ago now looks like it was looked after by a lovely family who were thoroughly domesticated. 
At the same moment, Maylani noticed a glowing radiance coming off Jaruwan’s wand as she was waving it like a figure of eight. As impressed as she was, Maylani’s attention shifted and fixed to the ravens who seemed almost too comfortable with everything that was flying left and right. 
“Don’t worry about them,” Jaruwan stated, and explained, “they are practically my pets by now.”
“Ah! Yes! I see, right,” Maylani shook her head as she came back to her body, while replying to Jaruwan. She then went on, complimenting her,  “and that was incredible by the way, Miss Jaruwan; how long did you spend learning that?” 
“Oh, it’s nothing, really,” Jaruwan brushed off, “they are just basic spells, nothing too fancy about it.”
“Haha, alright then, if you said so,” Maylani let out a polite laugh, then continued, “if they are really nothing ‘too fancy,’ that’d mean you could teach me, right?” 
“Well, technically, yes, I could teach you,” Jaruwan said, walking straight to the hut, “It really depends on the Dyrabria count in your blood.”
“The Dyra-what?”
“Dyrabria; a magical inducting organism.”
Maylani made a face, tilted her head slightly, then replied, “okay….?”  
“It basically indicates a person’s capabilities to use magic.”
“Oh! Gotcha,” Maylani’s face lit up. She then asked, “Is there a way to examine that?”
“Examine what? The Dyrabria count? Well, not really, there is a way but even that, it’s still not very accurate,” Jaruwan answered, and went on, “Normally, the count would be relatively high for a Poloskas descent, but it can vary, really.”
“Are you a Poloskas?” Maylani asked, looking at Jaruwan closely, “You don’t look like a Poloskas to me.”
“Haha, you’re right,” Jaruwan laughed slightly, then added, “My family is originally from Hoseong.” 
“Hoseong? That’s close to Jaria, right?”
“Yes…” Jaruwan’s tone shifted slightly, “Have you been to Jaria before?”
“Yeah, of course, I grew up in Jaria actually,” Maylani stated, “And I figured I might have some Jarian blood as well.”
“Maybe,” Jaruwan replied, “But you don’t really look like one, if I were to be entirely honest.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Maylani replied, “but Jaria will always have a special place in my heart.”
“That’s nice,” Jaruwan expressed as she approached the house’s door.
“Mhm.”
Jaruwan sharply stopped as she reached the door, causing Maylani to almost walk into her. She then looked over her shoulder toward Maylani’s direction, asking her in her natural monotonic voice, “Aren’t you scared of witches?” 
“Hm..?” Maylani expressed as she processed the question.
“Aren’t you scared of witches?” Jaruwan repeated. 
“Oh,” Maylani hesitantly exclaimed, “I– well, there are definitely some bad stories about witches in Frankia for sure, but I think we can’t just assume that someone is bad just because they are witches,” she then paused for a short moment then went one, “I mean, this goes for anything honestly.”
“That’s a good attitude to have,” Jaruwan replied, slightly swinging her wand on the door’s lock, then added, “but sometimes it’s best to trust your gut, you know?”
Maylani nodded in response as Jaruwan pushed the door open.
Dust and the smell of the past hit their faces as the party entered the hut. Most of the things were tightly organized but covered in layers of dust, the walls were lined with pickled animal parts, aligned with insect remains, and paralleled with other fermented ingredients, all neatly sealed in glass jars. Potions of varying colors, that were once vibrantly bright, were also arranged  elegantly on the other shelf; some of them even had thick sediment settled on the bottom of the glass containers. On the other side of the wall lies a few more dust-covered shelves that were filled with worn-out books and yellowed scrolls. The hut also came with a burnt out fireplace and was decorated with unlighted candles that were scattered all around.
“So, Maylani... right? Just sit down wherever you please,” Jaruwan said, while tidying up the place with her magic, “I’ll explain what you’ll need to do. Sounds good?” Said Jaruwan, after turning back toward Maylani’s direction. She then snapped her fingers, making all the candles in the room lit up.
“Woah.. how did you…?” Maylani gasped in awe, then went on and asked, “Don’t you need a wand to do that?"
“Well, for some simpler spells, we can just use our hands to cast,” Jaruwan explained while letting out a slight laugh. 
Maylani smiled in response. She then dragged a wooden stool from the front of the potion shelves to the front of Jaruwan, and sat down. 
At the same time, Jaruwan also moved one of those stools and sat opposite to Maylani. She then began, “So, demons, familiars, whatever you wish to call them, they are evil; I already mentioned that,” She explained, drawing one of the scrolls out from the shelves. “The reason why they are dangerous is that these demon spirits act in their own interests as they often try to twist your mind with its words and riddles,” She went on, then began to unbind the scroll, “Their only goals are to confuse you and weaken your consciousness in order to gain control of your body,” she then flipped the parchment around and handed it to Maylani.
She looked at the illustration on scroll but did not give out a response; it was a picture of a man wrapped with loosely-fitted red garment, with what seemed to her like a cat-shaped cloud looming over his head.
The fox spirit looked at the scroll with disgust, then at Jaruwan for a few seconds before moving its eyes to Maylani, “Are you really going to believe this random woman? They are all just a bunch of absurd crap coming off her mouth.” The fox exclaimed as it saw that Maylani was paying her undivided attention to Jaruwan’s explanation.
“Shush! You had your chance to explain yourself.”
“Oh—” Jaruwan looked at Maylani through her lashes, then asked, “is the demon bothering you right at this moment?"
“Yes, it is.” 
“I see…” Jaruwan replied, as her eyes went back to the scroll. She then added, “I would guess that it is trying to tell you that I am lying right now."
“Yes.” Maylani made a face then responded, “that’s correct…” Her tone shifted slightly.
“What’s on your mind, sweetheart?” Jaruwan asked, then glanced at her for a short moment, “You seemed troubled, is there anything you wish to say?” 
“I’m just really curious how you know; that’s all,” Maylani replied hesitantly. 
“Oh— right, well that makes sense why you would be alarmed,” Jaruwan said to herself. “I was once bound to a familiar just like you,” She added after looking directly into Maylani’s eye, then went on, “that’s why I will be helping you as well.”
“This must’ve been fate then,” Maylani smiled.
“Yes.. must have been…”
Before their conversation continued, Jaruwan paused for a short moment to turn toward Osborne who had been just standing at the corner of the room quietly by himself the whole time. “Osborne, could you get us some firewood? It's getting cold,” she asked. 
“Indeed,” He replied, then left the hut immediately.
“Okay, where were we?” Jaruwan turned back to Maylani, then took the scroll as she handed it back to her, and placed it on her thighs. She then recalled, “Oh yes! The spirits are bad, we must get rid of them, yes, yes.” 
“And... uh, how does one actually do that..? I mean, how does one get rid of the demon spirit?” Maylani asked.
“Right… about that…” Jaruwan expressed, then went on, “I’ll have to warn you that it is really dangerous, but it is the only way.” “You will need to get me an eye from one of the giant wolf spider mothers.” She replied, “But worry not, Osborne will be joining you as well. He has slayed several already. I will be preparing the ritual here, so we can be as efficient as possible and you will be home before you even notice it.”
“Sounds good,” Maylani replied without any fear in her heart. She then added, “so.. when are we going to do that?” 
“Right at this moment.” Osborne replied, then looked at Jaruwan, then placed some wood into the fireplace.
“Wha— when did you get inside!?” Maylani jumped out of her seat, as Osborne caught her off guard.  
Jaruwan let out a slight laugh, saying, “Make sure to keep your wit with you at all times, if you don’t want to end up as a spider’s food.” She then stressed, “Stay sharp.”
== Chapter III (To Add) ==