The duo was taken to a very strange land.
Clanking metal? What place would emit sounds of clanking metal?
Amazingly, they woke up in unison on a very sharp surface. Something that isn't flat, nor something that isn't rough, either.
Minne stood up and turned her head in all fours to make an attempt at identifying their own whereabouts.
"Jesus, where the hell are we?"
Marc followed her as he saw a sign that read:
"Brawnbrink Steel Pit"
"Minne! We're in a steel pit! We gotta get outta here before we become the scrap!" he ran towards her, clutching her hand. They swiftly hiked the mountain-like pile of discarded metal scrap, while looking for a possible exit.
"GODDAMNIT!" Minne raged as she saw the exit, which was on the opposite side of the wall they were trying to reach.
Like all other people, their first instinct is to run back the way they came from. Problem is, they couldn't do that without being utterly demolished by debris.
"Marc! Bring out a pink rune!"
"Now, close your eyes, and remember the time I gave you a rune to buy me a water bottle. Look deep into the memory, then find a chisel and a jar. Enter the memory, and then take both of the things I just told you to find."
she tasked the boy.
Marc got the required materials and gave it to Minne. She brings out a blank rune, carves an image that looks reminiscent of a bird, fills the jar with a purple gas, then dips the rune into the jar. She throws the rune back into the air, creating a purple bird which they both hop on.
"Woah, that was pretty cool."
"Come on, Marc, you did most of the work. I just finished it anyway."
"But still!"
This cute little credit-passing went on for a while before they got startled by falling debris.
Minne quickly maneuvered the bird to avoid these falling scraps at all costs, since it would be pretty annoying if their journey just ended right then and there.
After about ten minutes of flying and nonsensical babbling, they finally reached the exit.
"Agh, finally! This steel pit sure is huge, considering we took a substantial amount of time traversing through it." Marc confided as they were walking out of the pit.
A tall man in rags greeted them as they were heading out the structure.
"Howedy! Are ye lookin' for the lil' town a co'ul 'a steps fo'wad?"
Is it just me, or is this guy totally insane?
"Yeah, uh, we're looking for 'Brawnbrink'? Is that what this 'town' you were talking about is?" Marc asked him, feeling a bit suspicious.
"Ye, this town be sittin' on the border of Kinsfield... we call ye Brawnbrink for a reason."
"Wait, did you say 'Kinsfield'?" Minne doubted the old chap's words, when in fact, it was indeed true. They weren't taken to a serene land in the middle of nowhere; they were taken to Kinsfield, centuries before everything changed.
"Hold on, so that little prism that I laid my hands on; that was Kinsfield's final remnant of the past?" Minne blurted aloud, loud enough for even the old man to hear.
"Preeism? What 'preeism' are ye talkin' 'bout?" He queried.
"Oh, nothing. Just some odd event that happened to the both of us." Marc answered for the now-nervous Minne.
"STOP UNINTENTIONALLY BLOWING OUR COVER!" Marc telepathically spoke to the woman.
"Sincerest apologies, but he said that the area beyond Brawnbrink was Kinsfield..."
"Alrighty, lad. The path to Brawnbrink ain't too complex, ya see? Just head straight, left, straight, right, and then straight. Ye got this, troopers! Best 'a luck!" he cautioned.
"He doesn't seem too bad. At least we now know where we're supposed to go." the boy spoke.
The pair waved goodbye to the man, as he...
...disappeared into the grass...
This won't end well.
The pair, unknowingly sauntering into the supposed town that is "Brawnbrink" and had another session of nonsensical babbling.
Once they reached the supposed location of the town, there was nothing. Just a verdant hill.
"What? There's nothing here? Maybe it's just deeper into the land." Minne pondered as they walked further up the hill.
Unanticipatedly, all the flowers started wilting. The grass became a dead-brown color, the trees lost their leaves, and the sun became significantly less bright.
An uncanny silhouette flashes itself into the duo's field of view. It looked exceptionally bulky, as if it got all the dirt from under the ground.
Which it exactly did. It drifted closer towards them, with Minne preparing a white rune, and Marc preparing a bright blue rune.
It didn't look like this creature was very smart, as it was inadequately staggering towards them.
But being dumb doesn't immediately mean being terrible at combat.
Without warning, the beast lunged towards them.
Minne pulled Marc aside so he won't get harmed, as he uses the light blue rune following the creature's first strike.
Lurching back to hunt down their target, the spiked, supposedly mindless brute thrusted towards a tree and pulled it out of the ground. It was now targeting Marc, since he had a new face.
"Heh, what's your disguise form's name this time?"
"Beni. Beni Nesley. Another name I just thought of from the top of my head."
Getting back to the fight, Minne used up her white rune to summon another Lurker, but this time it was detached from her body. While Marc was distracting the horrid beast, and while the Lurker was making progress on it, Minne was designing a lot more white runes, and a few red runes just in case.
As the Lurker scratches off its face, the spikes protrude farther outward as a face even more haunting than a ghost's machinations. The cunning wretch had hollow eyes, a stretched psychotic smile, wrinkled, bloody skin, and a lengthy tongue with its own life. On top of that, a ghastly, deranged laugh can be heard from its mouth. Fortunately, Minne had already thrown four more white runes, with three of them becoming Lurkers and one of them forming into a Minder to protect Marc even further.
So now, there were four Lurkers absolutely massacring the demented fiend, Marc distracting said demented fiend, the Minder protecting Marc, and Minne preparing a black rune.
What could possibly go wrong this time?
...
Everything.
As Minne was about to throw the final rune, the foul beast ejected all of its spikes onto the Lurkers, which were just enough to quell each and every Lurker. It used its abundantly extensive tongue to suck up the Minder that was defending Marc, which leaves him vulnerable to any incoming assault from the beast. It draws back its spikes, and then plunges into the ground for swift recovery.
All the trees in the area begin to go timber as the beast reappears, quite significantly larger than before. Still heavily mangled from the Lurkers, the fiend discharges its spikes once more, only now it is aimed towards Minne.
In a last-ditch effort to emerge triumphant from this sudden battle, Minne passes the black rune to Marc, on the other end of the plains.
It successfully reaches Marc, which took a lot more time than she had expected. In said time, the creature made great progress on staggering towards Minne.
The boy, unaware of the rune's function, throws it in hopes of devastating the dire wretch.
One step before murdering Minne, the beast started to collapse, with the black rune taking quick effect. Unfortunately, the forest did not revert itself to its state before the sudden wrangle, so it just looks like a withered mess.
The beast dismantles itself into various flora, while saying its final dying words;
"Ye will regret 'tis!"
It was at this moment that the duo reunited and realized that this beast was the ragged old man they talked to earlier.
"So this was all a trap?" Marc bellowed in both exasperation and exhaustion.
"It looks like so. 'Why did that shoddy old man try to murder us?' is now the question at hand."
They were relieved they didn't just fade out of existence, but why the old man? What did they ever do to him?
That is a question that another day shall answer.
