Legend of Parocaav II: Against the Darkness (rough draft)

Chapter XVIII: The Talk with Tao

The sun peaks over the mountains surrounding the Ragnarok Valley. Once the morning light shines, it shows how much of the northern part of the planet has been drained. So much raw power being absorbed into the Goddess. Parocaav senses Grimm enter the valley in a cloud of black smoke. She lowers herself down to the ground as he approaches her.

"What did you find out?" Parocaav asks.

"You know how Bahemyth is M'lady. He would not disclose any details about the origins of Tao," Grimm sighs.

"What of the face Tao revealed to you?"

"I don't think it was his true face. He's hiding something from everyone. Oh, there was one thing that was rather interesting about him though."

"What's that?"

"Well.... whoever he is, he's from this time period originally."

"How can that be Grimm? We had to deal with him millennia ago during the Ragnarok Wars."

"I honestly have no idea. I don't believe Bahemyth would lie to me Lady Parocaav."

"No matter who he is, it won't be enough to stop me. I can understand why Gaia feared me having her power. It's far greater than I ever imagined, and I've barely scratched the surface. No one will be able to stop me."

Parocaav starts laughing uncontrollably while she raises her hands up. Her palms glow a bright green and so do the surrounding mountains. She closes her hands into fists and the mountain range vanishes as if it were never there.

"Such power!" Parocaav laughs out cynically.

"Holy crap," Grimm says in amazement, "That was.... incredible."

"That, my dear Reaper, is just a glimpse of the power I will have once I've drained Gaia dry."

Meanwhile ~

Drayk and Sammi have joined back up with Roku and Tao. All of them stand in silence for a moment, not knowing what to say next. Drayk is still pondering over what Tao had said about his kid sister. That couldn't be true, right?

"What will we do without Vortex?" Sammi asks breaking the silence.

"Well.... I suppose we continue our journey the way it began.... on foot," Drayk sighs.

"We need a ship now. We must get out there, somehow," Roku states, "With all the people here gone, how will we get a ship? It's not like we know anyone else around here."

"You three are so depressing, you know that?" Tao teases them, "All is not lost."

"What is your plan?" Drayk asks him outright in an almost sarcastic tone, "You know where we can get a ship?"

"Not at all actually. I don't know anyone from around here," Tao jokes, "But I do have a way to get us anywhere, even faster than Vortex. I had a great master in Ragnarok Magic, and he taught me many useful techniques. Some I'm surprised were not taught to you before our master's death."

"Leon taught us basics. He told me once that our skills would need to be learned from elsewhere," Roku tells everyone, "He mentioned a mage we would meet.... I didn't think anything of it until now. He knew you'd be here."

"Yes. Leon's involvement in this goes all the way back to the beginning," Tao explains, "I won't go into much detail about that now though, we have matters to attend to. Gather around me Bringers of Hope, nice and close. We're going to teleport."

"Teleport? That magic is impossible unless it's controlled by Dark Magic!" Roku shouts.

"No. It is one of the Ragnarok spells of ancient times. The ability to teleport is something that is taught from the very beginning," Tao tells her, trying to calm her nerves, "Trust me. There is no Dark Magic involved with this. I can teach it to you two later."