Episode Sage: Chapter 1: Beyond

Chapter 1 of Sage's adventure. His first official appearance in the Saga of Seasons.

The Heroes of Vytal

Are Known By All

But Huntsmen And Huntresses

Save the World Day In and Day Out

Without Anyone to Witness

Their Story

 

 

 

Seven Years after the Battle of Vytal

The Wastelands North of Vacuo

Spring

 

 

 

            The sun began to rise over the shifting sands of the desert.  The shadows of the dunes begin to fall away to the judgement of the sun casting aside the darkness of night.  Shining bright once again to the dismay of anyone unfortunate enough to be caught under its rays by accident.  But today the sun shines upon a caravan.  Several wagons and broken-down machines fitted with horses and wooden wheels, and a handful of dune buggies held together by duct tape, rope and rusty screws.  A few tents poke out from beneath the sand where the winds of the night buried them, and others still stand tall despite the weather of the region.  As the heat begins to rise, a few of these caravanners emerge from their tents.  Those who are still buried wait for their friends to dig them out of their sandy tomb.  Those who do not help with digging out the others prepare for once the others are free.  Some prepare the morning meal; others begin preparing the wagons and vehicles for travel.  One of those helping prepare for the journey was a man wearing a red coat and red waist cape, and beneath the coat was a black combat shirt with silver markings along the sides, and black pants with shoes that matched those pants but with white on the toe cap.  He pulled out a big bag of food and carried it over towards the cooks.  It was grueling work, but the challenges of the desert during the day would make this seem like a blissful dream.  But even these simple moments were still haunted by nightmares, as a bell started ringing throughout the camp.  People started yelling “Grimm to the west!  Grimm to the west!”  As soon as it was apparent what was happening, the caravanners started running for any still pitched tents, inside one of the carts, or attempted to hide behind any tall sand dunes.  But the man in the red coat ran towards the advancing pack of Grimm.  Pulling out a small telescope, he saw that it was only four Beowolves.  Not even evolved Beowolves, but betas.  But if there were four young ones, there were likely a pack of older ones not too far away.  And the growing negative emotions in the camp would only hasten the process of those other Grimm sensing their prey.  Putting his telescope away, the warrior pulled out two weapons.  A black sword and a silver dagger.  The sword itself was a standard sized sword, with a compartment in the hilt for Dust cartridges if the need for ranged gunfire was needed.  The dagger was also morphable into a small pistol, but didn’t have the ammo capacity or the power of the sword.  More for stealth shots or surprise attacks.  But the Grimm at this moment in time were moving too fast for effective gunshots.  So with a twirl of his blades, the warrior charged forward.  Two of the Beowolves charged ahead of their other two brothers and started to bear down to try and attack in an instant.  But as soon as they leapt up in the air to strike, the warrior took his dagger and threw it at the one slightly behind his brother.  This caused the Grimm to suddenly stop all forward momentum and crash into the sand.  The other Grimm continued forward disregarding its own safety, and was met with a swift strike from the warriors sword.  The Grimm dissipated almost instantly, allowing the warrior to rush forward, pull the knife out of the wounded Grimm and then run his sword through his head causing the creature to dissipate instantly.  From there, another one of the Beowolves rushed in front of him, and attempted to impale the warrior with his claws.  But the attack was far too easy to read, even for a Grimm attack.  The warrior blocked the attack with his sword, and used the dagger to stab the exposed paw of the Beowolf.  This caused the creature to reel back in pain, making it easy once again to just impale the creature and cause it to dissipate.  The warrior began to relax when it appeared there was nobody left around.  But then he remembered: there were four.  And just as soon as he realized the fourth was unaccounted for, the creature leapt up from behind the warrior and brought down his powerful claws.  But the moment that even one of those claws even touched the hair of the warrior, his whole body started to shiver, and he began moving almost as fast as light.  To the point where he could walk around the Beowolf as if it were a statue.  And in the place of where the Beowolf was still attacking was an after-image of the warrior.  He was moving so fast there was a copy of himself that took the hit and faded into light.  The Beowolf was stuck in time.  It was at the mercy of the warrior, and he had none to give for this monster.  With a quick twirl, he did two quick strikes with his weapons and made several slices along the body of the Beowolf.  But it just continued to hang there for a moment, as if nothing happened.  But then, the warrior took a deep breath, and sheathed both his weapons.  And the moment his blades were no longer visible, the Beowolf exploded into dust, and the world began to move like normal again.  And the moment it did, the warrior fell on one knee, gasping for breath.  His Semblance was powerful, but drained his aura almost completely whenever he used it.  One of the caravanners ran up to him with a canteen of water which the warrior happily accepted.

            “Are you okay Huntsman?” the caravanner asked.  The warrior held up a hand to the caravanner as he chugged the entire canteen and tried his best to catch his breath.

            “I keep telling you,” the warrior said finally getting his breathing under control, “you can call me Sage.”

 

 

 

            The sun continued to climb into the sky hanging over the caravan unrelenting in its power.  The group had been traveling for weeks at this point and were used to the weather, but Sage who had only been hired by the group a week ago to the day, when their journey was almost over, was not as acclimated to the harsh weather conditions.  He had spent a good amount of time taking on missions that took him out into the wastelands of Vacuo, but none of them were too far away from the main kingdom and they usually never lasted more than a day.  But Sage was happy to take this job, as he had been dealing with issues revolving around another Huntsman named Sage from Shade academy.  Sage Ayana, who was famous amongst the locals as a member of Team SSSN who famously fought in the Battle of Vale and the Battle of Vytal and was a part of the top brass of Shade Academy alongside Headmaster Sun Wukong.  So whenever see that a Huntsman names Sage was available for hire, they seemed almost disappointed when they found out it was Sage Pearson they were hiring, not Ayana.  But that didn’t deter Sage.  Unlike his teammates from Beacon who chose to stay in Vale and continue to work together, Sage felt his calling was to be much more of a journeyman rather than serve one kingdom or region.  Alongside that, while most who fought in the battle of Vytal use that fact as a status symbol, Sage who was at Beacon Academy at the time of the attack and was one of the survivors who fought alongside the proclaimed “heroes of Vytal”, he never tried to once use it as a status symbol.  Or as a way to demand more pay from his clients.  The world was full of heroes who could face down giant monsters without blinking, Sage decided he wanted to prove himself by his actions in the here and now, not with a single moment in time where everybody from that battle gets showered in praise.  There were times when Sage was tempted to pull out that small tidbit of information to rude and selfish clients who weren’t satisfied with his results.  But he usually bit his tongue and continued to fight no matter what.  And at this particular point in time, he was fighting for this caravan.  A group of villagers who were a part of a small village far south of the Kingdom of Vacuo that was becoming depleted of natural resources.  Instead of trying to fix the broken land, they decided to move to the village of Portum, a growing village built right next to the revitalized Great Oasis north of Vacuo.  While it was still a small village in comparison to the four Kingdoms, people were predicting that so long as the Oasis flourished, the town would continue to grow without stopping until perhaps that entire region of the Wastelands was habitable.  But there were a fair share of critics of this as well, as the settlement was only a few hundred miles away from the site of the Great Graveyard.  But everybody shot down those ideas quickly.  And people continued to come.  People like the ones Sage was helping protect during their travels to reach this village.  And after what seemed like an eternity, the village was finally on the horizon.  Initially Sage thought it was a mirage, but pulling out his telescope, he could see clear as day the makeshift walls that were being built around the developing town.  The people of the caravan tried to cheer, but they were too exhausted to even muster a smile.  They just shambled towards the town and were greeted by the gatekeepers.  They came down and started checking all the different wagons and travel supplies for potential contraband or weapons smuggling while also providing water to those in the caravan who needed it most.  Sage just showed one of the guards his Huntsman license and made his way into the village.  While the title of village was still attributed to Portum, it was buzzing with energy on par with one of the four Kingdoms.  Several shops and traders in the main square, soldiers patrolling around some of the larger more important buildings, kids playing in the sand swept streets, it was truly a unique sight for this region.  But Sage didn’t care too much.  He scanned the surroundings and found the nearest tavern, and made his way inside.  The tavern itself was pretty empty since it was still fairly early in the day, but the bartender immediately recognized that Sage had just come from the wilderness and slid him a tall glass of water.  Sage happily accepted and sat down at the bar.  He continued to sit there until eventually the caravanners got past the guards and made their way inside the tavern as well.  The bartender helped everyone who needed it, while the caravanners graciously accepted and enjoyed the fact they were finally out of the sun.  Sage simply smiled and continued to sit there.  The leader of the caravan walked up to Sage with a big smile and handed him his payment for the job.  Sage graciously accepted and pulled out his Scroll to mark the mission as complete on the CCTS Mission Board network.  He then allocated a small bit of money to his bank card, walked over to the bartender, and asked,

            “Got any openings for the night?”

            “It’s not even midday yet” the bartender said pouring another glass of water for one of the caravanners.

            “I don’t think I’ll make it to midday” Sage said with a sigh.  The bartender simply nodded his head, ran Sage’s payment, grabbed a room key and gave Sage quick directions to his room.  Sage was starting to feel the fatigue from not just the journey, but the lingering effects of using his Semblance for so long that morning.  But he mustered up enough strength to make his way up the stairs, find his room, get a quick shower, then crash into the bed.  And within a second of his body hitting the pillow, his body shut down.

 

 

 

            A loud and powerful knocking snapped Sage out of his deep sleep.  He rubbed his eyes and saw that some time had passed.  The sun was gone and the moon hung high in the sky.  The alarm clock read that it was past midnight the next day and it was now early morning.  He had slept for almost thirteen hours.  Sage stayed in bed for a moment hoping that perhaps the knocking was on accident.  But then the knocks came again.  And now that he was awake, it was clear that the knocking was on the door to his room.  He made sure he looked somewhat presentable, then opened the door to see a man wearing a robe covered in sand gasping for breath in front of Sage’s door.

            “Are you a Huntsman?” the stranger asked.

            “Who wants to know?” Sage responded still trying to wake up.

            “You have to help me.  I was a part of an expedition to the Great Graveyard to the north of here.  I know, it’s forbidden, but we wanted to do some research on the place, and curiosity got the better of us.  There’s so much we don’t know about the Great War and…”

            “Can you skip the history lesson and get to why you need me?” Sage asked rubbing his eyes trying to stay awake.

            “Right, sorry.  Anyways, our group was ambushed by some giant creature.  We couldn’t get a good look at it, but my colleagues were all captured by this monster, and somehow I managed to escape.  I’m not sure what happened, but I need somebody who can fight to help with this problem.”

            “Cool.  You can give me more details in the morning.”

            “The morning?  But my colleagues!  If they are captured….”

            “If they’re captured, there is time to save them.  Or they’re already dead and we need to confirm that fact. Besides, travelling during the night while cooler than during the day, the Grimm are far more dangerous during this time.  So you can bang on my door at first light, and I promise I will help you take care of this.”

            “Thank you sir!  And I shall ensure you will be well paid and….” the stranger continued to ramble on, but Sage closed the door, and looked at his bed once more.

            “Looks like it’s going to be a while before I see you again old friend.  So I am going to enjoy this.”  With that, Sage collapsed on the bed, and fell right back to sleep.

Author's Note

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