The Ghost, The Old Shopkeep and The Boy all hit the water's surface with a loud bang underneath their feet. The sound of a grand splash could be heard above them, or beneath them, nobody knew.
As the ghost merely floated in the middle of a river, more agitated than angered, the need for oxygen being a mere microsecond of her ever lasting existence that stopped mattering 315 years ago, a sort of calmness hit her psyche.
Her body flips as she calmly rises to the water's surface, the sunlight beaming from every possible angle as she couldn't help but smirk. As she reaches the water's surface, a thought immediately hits her in the head like a bolt of lightning.
OH GOD, THE KID AND THE GEEZER!!!
She begins to turn around to swim after the two of them, her anxiety finally reeling its head, as she reaches for her opener with her hand almost showing an intention to throw it as opposed to simply stabbing to defend.
At that moment, two beings in a singular ten foot tall pillar of upward splashed water arise out of the surface. A boy panting and gasping for air and an old shopkeep laughing like a maniac as the energy on his feet keeps him afloat as he makes as many small steps on the surface as possible.
"Hey kid, you alright…" She tries to ask the boy. Her face morphing with a faint resemblance of surprise.
Khouma was by his side once more, walking on the water in the exact same way, albeit unknowingly.
He opens his eyes as the ghost did herself and the exact amount of surprise is doubled on his own face. Frightened, he almost loses balance as Arthur catches him by the scruff of his neck.
The boy looks down at the water's surface and runs a hand through it as he tries leaning down even further.
"Do…" He hesitated, almost knowing the answer already.
"DO I HAVE MAGIC?!"
"Of course, my boy." Arthur said, gazing into one of the waterfall riddled stone walls that surrounded them all.
"Everyone in Wondertale has the capabilities of using magic. It's only today you learn its secrets. All you needed was for someone, or in some other cases the individual themselves, to either unlock the potential of or give your Mana Cells a little push."
"Mana Cells?" Asks the boy
Rumble Rumble
Only a single sound Verity could not exactly hear, but feel underneath her boots, even as she levitates off the river itself.
A fin emerges. Large, pale blue, holes that didn't even dig all the way through. It was curved almost 45 degrees opposite of her direction. Yet it flipped immediately at the two boys not from the heat, but the ripples the two created with each step.
"As I've said, every Wondertalian has this third blood cell, but only a few have ever learned to…" Arthur says with a seemingly awful sense of urgency.
"BOY!! GEEZER!! BEHIND YA!!!"
As the two turn around, the body of the fin leaps out of the river to meet with Arthur and Khouma. A fish-like beast meets their eyes, a sort of mossy and big mouthed creature with little to no teeth.
Its open mouth attaches itself to Khouma's arm and flops around.
The boy stares at the small beast on his arm with a small bit of both fear and excitement as his arm is hardly controlled in replacement of the Moss-Bass' body as Arthur, in a way to teach how Mana can truly work if utilized, charges two fingers with his Mana and pushes down on the head of the fish, killing it peacefully.
"May the Death Angels reach you and bring you to heaven in peace." he says as his hands are clasped together and his eyes, real or fake, close not to pray, but to speak directly to who he wishes to convey his message to.
"Good. Now then, Khouma. You try."
A lesson was given on the mysterious energy known as Mana. A type of energy conducted through a third blood cell, that much Verity understood but beyond the bare facts, she couldn't pay attention. Only a few words in the chant stood out;
"Death Angel, huh? Yeah. I like the sound of that."
'Death Angel'. The name would repeat in her head for minutes at a time after that moment. This name, this kind of figure of life and death, could that be what she has seen as she was taken to Limbo? Thought after thought continued to fill her head as the old man and the boy continued to walk towards a cave in the stone walls, Arthur only tapping her on the shoulder to come along with them. She nods and the three begin to trek through the inside of Landfish Island's ribcage.
The only thing the ghost could possibly remember of the cave was a darkened hallway with a single light at the end.
A small sense of Deja Vu almost hit Verity as the sound of a splash could be heard from behind her.
Khouma went missing.
With a sigh of annoyance and grief, Verity dives in after the boy as the old man watches on, deciding to take a seat on a cave rock as watches the Moss-Bass fight its way off of Khouma's arm.
In what seemed like a single breath in the span of a small eternity, the three finally made it to the cave of the fish's mouth after nearly three hours worth of swimming.
The sunlight finally touches skin once more. A bit of warmth finally hit them all as the boy was allowed to sit on the beach. The ghost felt as if she was a tree feeding off the light as she finally inhaled to a great degree.
BOOM
All of a sudden, a grand boom could be heard from the backside of Landfish Island's tail.
A set of twin peaks masquerading like a trout's tail, both in their own habitat. The left fin, close to sea level yet crawling with small bugs and massive cats, the jungle is humid in a purple-ish hue of fog. The right fin, where the crash was heard, a series of clear skied cliffs, the ocean deeper compared to the left as the sound of an elevator-like cable could be heard with Wondertale's highest form of Hearing Magic. The boom heard was as if not one beast was caught almost half the size of the pillar known as Fishbone, all 15km tall, not two with a beast even bigger, but three as the third attempted to catch the catch for its dinner.
All this could be heard from the other side of the island, all 50km away as the birds flapped away in fear.
"Oh. I see that my daughter finally caught it." Arthur said with a slight smile on his face, one of pride, one of a proud father.
CAUGHT?! Khouma's thought process almost stopped completely at the sound of one simple word.
"You know what? I'm not even going there right now." Verity says as she just sort of throws her hands up and attempts to walk away from everything happening at the same time.
"WELL DONE MY DEAR!! BE CAREFUL BRINGING IT HOME!" Screams Arthur as he waves his fake right arm to the general direction of the noise, his voice booming to the point of almost destroying the cavern they just left.
Khouma heard the sound of the boom, and as his mind finally began to return, one thought in particular reverberated throughout his entire existence.
Dear gods, is this the kind of adventurer I have to become?
In the span of five hours, barely half a day, the one boy known as Khouma, resident of Fishbone since birth, lost and gained all. His village, he's run away thanks to the help of Verity. His family, who knows if they know he's alive? His Mana, the strange energy only read in books, the power to hunt for treasures beyond human comprehension, he had only been given the ability to use three hours ago.
Verity could see the look in his eyes, his body dead yet his pupils telling all the story she ever needed. The way they moved around frantically, wondering where to go next, almost panicking.
Should she apologize again for being the reason the pastor saw him as a devil to begin with?
Could she possibly offer a helping hand?
She had no idea what to do next aside from reaching a hand out to touch his shoulder.
Verity closes her eyes and invites Khouma to do the same.
Her hand phases into his shoulder as she slowly makes her way into his head.
Khouma could hear more than the sound of crashing waters, he began hallucinating the feeling of the summer breeze hitting his skin and ruffling his hair. He could hear the ocean calming down and was beginning to see seagulls peacefully flying overhead, almost singing a song for him.
Calm.
Khouma's anxieties were all but gone by the same ghost that practically began them all to begin with.
As Verity slowly removes her hand from Khouma's head, almost like a big sister slowly removing hers from the hand of her little brother in the middle of a panic attack, she ruffles his head, causing him to laugh just a little bit.
Arthur walks up to the both of them, right by their side and pulls something from the pocket of his pink furred coat. A few misses from what he intended to grab he mentioned in a breath, from what they could both hear.
From a torch, a bamboo rod, a fish, a carrot, a crystal banana, a water gun with a teleportation schrift invoked, a sword in the shape of an ox's head and horns, until he finally reaches for what he wished to give the boy.
"Here. You might need this. The world from here on out is yours to explore, my boy."
A card. A single card was given to the boy with a picture of a bird on the front. The name "Maple Jays" stood out above every other detail.
The Maple Jays, the Treasure Hunting guild formed on this very island, only spoken of in rumors around Fishbone. Some say that the Maple Jays were responsible for finding up to one hundred eleven treasures never before seen by the human side of Wondertale.
Arthur knelt by his side, his arms in the position of the adventurer's cree.
"Khouma, from this day forward as your Mana Cells have been awakened, you are reborn a mage, May the dreams of your heart become a reality. Head to this town, I found it on my way here and befriended the guildmaster. He should be more than happy to help."
Verity, seeing the sudden shock on the boy's face, decided to shake his shoulder just one more time to get his attention before his mind would draw blank once more.
"Be a good adventurer, kid."
Verity couldn't help but smirk at the kids eyes as they lit up into tears once more.
Khouma embraced the two, fully breaking down. Tears turned into a personal rainstorm as stains in both of their clothes were sure to become apparent.
"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!"
Arthur and Verity smiled as he continued to cry. They had all faced nearly half a day of mental anguish, a fake pastor's rage, a town chasing them off a cliff, walking on water and Khouma's first beast capture, which Arthur gave to the boy as he detached from the two.
What was there to feel aside from happiness?
And just like that, in what felt like the snap of her fingers as the ground felt like it was moving away in a fit of apathy, the two were gone.
The boy, in a fit of nothing but thanks, ran off to the nearest town on Landfish Island, only a stairway away.
The old man, moving in the direction of the loudest boom she's heard since arriving in the world of Wondertale.
This was it?
The first bit of warmth she's felt in months and its gone like that.
How is this surprising? Every time she thought some people would be able to stick around, they're gone in the blink of eternity's eye. She had nothing but the rest of it to look forward to.
Until she found something dropped by the old man on the sands of the beach.
Another card, one with a business name on it.
Oh yeah, he did mention bein' a shopkeep.
She almost felt it. She felt the way her facial muscles broke into a cocky grin.
She knew this was a chance for a scare unlike any others before, to truly showcase her expertise in the craft. To feel… ready. To be the creator of chaos.
This moment wouldn't be it.
This wouldn't be the last time she'd feel some form of chaotic warmth.
This wouldn't be the last bit of chaos she would ever create regardless, but this opened a whole new bunch of possibilities.
A new path that could lead to the warmth she had hoped for.
To make her own dreams come true.
She'd make it that way.
As of this time, she was only known as Verity. Yet, today, her name was Verity Collins Anamdead. And this is a story of a girl learning how to live. Not in a literal sense, but her life from a mere ghost to a true Death Angel. It's also a story of the meaning of family.