Kobolds stopped in their daily business and looked up into the sky. A big red bird flew out of the sky and descended into the middle of the village. Rudy, Jack, Cecilia, Hanpan, Jane, Emiko, and Kuromimi got out. "This Kuromimi town. Woof," Kuromimi said.
"Kuromimi!" Gon shouted, running into the town. "Dwarf come! Have big cannon!"
"The dwarves?" Fu Su Lu said, walking out of the inn. "Why would the dwarves want to attack?"
"I wonder if they're under the control of Angol Fred," Emiko mused. "He *is* the King of False Rumors, after all."
The dwarves, led by the dwarf chief and Hanzo the ninja, burst into the kobold village. Jack hit the chief with Trump Card, while Jane shot a dwarf with her ARM. Hanzo threw a dagger at Rudy. Rudy retaliated with his Twin Orbs ARM, knocking Hanzo out. Fu Su Lu picked up the dwarf chief and slammed him into a tree.
The fight was over quickly. The dwarves were no match for Rudy's party. "You have Clive weapon?" Kuromimi asked, looking at Rudy's ARM.
"What?" Rudy asked.
"He's talking about your ARM," Hanpan explainedd. "Sounds like there's somebody in this world with an ARM, too."
The dwarf chief sat up, rubbing a bump on his head. "Where am I?" he asked. "What happened? Who are you people?"
"Why dwarf come to Kuromimi village?" Kuromimi asked the dwarf.
"I... I don't know," the chief said. "I don't remember a thing. The last thing I remember is stopping by Ledon's inn."
"He's up to his old tricks again, I see," Fu Su Lu grunted.
Hanzo came to. "W-what happened?" he said.
"Someone's been controlling you," Hanpan said.
"Yuber!" Hanzo hissed. "I should have known better than to trust that..."
"Who's Yuber?" Cecilia asked.
"The Black Knight," Hanzo explained. "Of the former Red Moon Empire. He came to Rokkaku and just asked to stay the night. I thought something was odd, especially because he had Ain Gide with him, and Ain Gide's dead."
"But you can't get even get to Rokkaku," the dwarf chief said.
"As I said, I thought something was odd," Hanzo said.
"This sounds like Angol Fred's work," Emiko commented to the party. "Dead people being brought back, getting to inaccesible places... this could only be the work of the King of False Rumors."
"If you're looking for Yuber, talk to Pesmerga," Fu Su Lu said to Rudy. "He's sworn to kill him and he's bound to known where Yuber is."
"I'll come with you," Hanzo offered. "Yuber's not going to pull those kind of tricks and live to tell about it."
"Kuromimi come too!" Kuromimi said.
* * *
Zed kicked on the door of the closet. "HELP!" he shouted, growing desperate.
* * *
"Of course I know where Yuber is," Pesmerga said in the inn in Rikon. "That's not the question. The question is where Stallion is."
"Care to elaborate on that?" Jack asked.
"We need Stallion's True Holy Rune to operate the portal to the past in the temple of Qlon. Yuber's sort of vanished, so the only way to find him is to travel into the past. See, to find Yuber, we need three things. First, we all need to be at least 67 or higher, or so I've heard."
"Check," Jane said. "How about you?"
"That's what Clive," Pesmerga nodded towards the gray-cloaked figure with an ARM standing in the corner, "and I have been doing. We've finally reached level 67. Next, we all need a True Rune."
"Is this a True Rune?" Cecilia asked, looking at the Chrono Rune.
Pesmerga took it. "What kind of rune is this?"
"Yeah, it's a True Rune," Hanpan said, answering Cecilia's question.
Pesmerga shrugged and handed it back. "And, finally, we need to have Stallion along. That's the tricky one."
"What's so hard about that?" Hanzo said. "We find him, ask him to come with us, and if he doesn't, we use force."
"Because there's no way to find him," Pesmerga explained. "Oh, we know where he is. But there's no way to get to him. Believe me. I've tried everything."
"Where is he?"
"Upstairs in the item shop in the Great Forest."
| Next chapter: Windy |