Whew... When I write I try to make it as though the AV world is a "real" world, so there's no such thing as reviving spells and stuff. "Dead" in my place = On the verge of death, but not quite dead yet. Your idea is interesting, though! It's cool. Makes it feel like both game and reality

About the creatures, yeah... Trust me, they aren't dragons. They're minotaurs (Youtube video link to prove my point ). The dragons are in the Demon Caves (near Eithera's Temple) along with lots and lots of imps. And Ahriman's Lair if you count wyverns as dragons. Being that AV1 is the only AV I play, I've pretty much memorized a lot of those crazy details. I've even gotten round to memorizing what happens in the cutscenes Not exact quotes but the general idea of what happened.... Yeah, I'm such a dork.

Ugh. I have to rewrite that scene, then.
>_<

You just need to replace a few words. Change "dragons" into "myrs" and you're all set.

Owh, such a GREAT GREAT GREAT story over there!
Oh, my, really impressive!
really amusing,
good job

I forgot to post my rant about Lars and women:



Poor Lars. Somehow my image of him is that of being perpetually harassed by the women of the world. Basically I somehow imagine both Te’ijal and Elini having a weird sort of soft spot for the guy. Elini as a left over from my crack-fic universe where Rhen and Dameon get married, and Lars and Elini have a tentative long-distance relationship in which they both ardently deny having any interest in each other yet keeping being found escaping from sketchy places like the Academy Library together (um. Lars becomes headmaster. I should mention that. And Te’ijal doesn’t marry Pirate John- Mad Marge does, and they make an inn together (another leftover that ended up in this story, by the way). And Dameon grows his hair out and he and Rhen leave managing the kingdom to Danny, who is an excellent Regent-whatever and slightly resembles Vetinari from Discworld. Eventually they all get bored and, after raiding Aveyond to recover their weapons, become villains. I said crack. (interestingly enough, Te’ijal and Galahad are the exact same. Because they have enough crack for a lifetime already, I think. Or because I felt there story was so perfect it didn't need to be -cough- "fixed".))

And Te’ijal because, okay, somehow I see them being friends just in a really weird way. Te’ijal’s letter pretty much summarizes it. Just sort of imagine Elini always laughing at Lars about his hopeless crush on Rhen, whereas Te’ijal keeps trying to sort of give him advice.

As for Mad Marge- okay, there’s no explaining that.

So basically he’s stuck with a crazy Veldtian woman, a crazy vampire woman, and a crazy-doesn’t-even-begin-to-describe madwoman. All of whom seem to find him amusing.

And after that there are the ones who keep hitting on him (see: Amalia, making small talk in the ballroom. No, she is not just being polite. Secretly she is a member of the Stark Raving Mad For Lars Tenobor club, a highly exclusive club nearly every woman in Veldarah seems to be desperate to be in, and even though he doesn’t actually know this he can sort of sense it with his ‘oh god not again’ radar, which is why he’s so happy to break off the conversation),

Because basically he’s cursed so that everyone who barely knows him thinks he’s boyfriend material. And all the people who do know him can’t seem to remember that he’s a male at all.

…Wow, it sounds even more pathetic once I write it out. The poor thing.

Pfffttt.... Poor poor Lars indeed... In MY case, it would be "poor poor Rhen" instead because I put her in all sorts of weird situations (my fanfic is proof enough I think). And why am I ranting back at you? *runs away*

*gasp* IT'S AN UPTADE!!!!!!!!!! YIPEEEEEEE!!!

One day she swung her arm up in an underslash and Gaden parried, and for a moment she hesitated in anticipation, of the moan of pain that had become so familiar, and in that moment he swung at her fiercely. She had to divert his blow, as she dodged to the side and then flicked her wrist to disarm him-

And he stood there panting with exertion far beyond the physical maneuver he had executed.

They stared at each other for a moment in shock. Then Rhen let out a whoop and hugged him.

“I am so, so incredibly proud of you,” she said, and could feel her face splitting in two from how wide her smile was.

“I still have a lot to work on,” he said, hesitantly hugging her back. He sounded kind of choked, but when they pulled apart he had already hurriedly wiped his eyes dry.

This must be what the joy of teaching was, she thought, as she left the classroom with a spring in her step. She did not think she would forget the look on his face for the rest of her life.

---

Good things came in flocks, apparently. That day Kylie got everything right, and Hio didn’t make a single snarky comment the entire class, too intent was he on the rather complicated footwork Rhen had decided to teach him.

On her way to tell Lars she passed, of all people, Sirona- just for a moment, going down a perpendicular hallway. It made her grin. Let Sirona have her classroom full of kids- Rhen Darzon was more than happy to have her three. Any of whom were worth more than all of Sirona’s charges combined, anyway.

---

When she rounded the hallway of Lars’s classroom she slowed to a halt.

Lars was talking to someone. Specifically, a pink-haired woman in high heels whose hand, as Rhen watched, brushed lightly against Lars’s shoulder as she spoke. They were standing apart, but just barely.

She swallowed and then willed herself to keep walking.

“Well, I tried as you said,” the woman said, brushing a strand of hair away from her face, “but then the oldest kid, a little devil, started using his stick to play on pretend drums and after that it all just fell apart.”

“Kids do that sometimes,” Lars said.

The woman giggled. “Oh god, you’re so right!”

What the heck was funny about that? Rhen thought, sourly. She cleared her throat.

“So, in any case, I was wondering-“ the woman said, but Lars had turned and noticed Rhen standing there.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb,” Rhen said, snappishly. (What the heck was wrong with her? Why was she feeling so irritated? Somewhere inside of her the rational part of her brain was insisting that she has no reason to be annoyed.)

“It’s fine, Amalia and I were just done talking anyway. Right?” He smiled his bright, Lars-being-a-slimy-charmer smile at the woman- Amalia. He’d even used that look on the Empress, Rhen thought, bitterly.

Amalia flushed and nodded, but lingered, clearly unwilling to leave.

Lars, however, was not sticking around.

“What did you want to tell me?” He asked, already striding down the hallway.

“What makes you think I want to tell you anything?” Rhen said, still annoyed, even if she hadn’t the slightest clue why. “Maybe I just came to pick you up for our practice.”

“Right.” He said, raising his eyebrows. “Except you never do that.”

She sighed. “Sorry. I’m being weird. It’s stupid. Especially because actually I should be really happy- I am really happy- Gaden made his first breakthrough today and I feel incredible. I’m so proud of him and it’s great and I really want you to come by later and check out his sorcery. And Kylie and Hio were really cooperative today and I feel like I got so much done. It’s great. I’m really happy about it actually. I was just a little impatient to tell you, that’s all.”

“That’s really incredible,” he said. “And I think I will, later. But wow, Rhen! That’s really great!”

He grinned at her.

She found herself grinning back.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, it really is.”

“I know this is a bad idea,” he said, “and I’m sure I’ll regret it later, but an occasion like this I think justifies it so- how about we eat out tonight? My treat.”

“I’d love to,” she said, with such enthusiasm that he laughed.

----

Later that evening, after Lars had already had an hour-long session with Gaden in which he’d announced that Gaden might finally be ready to start learning sorcery properly, they headed off to their usual practice ground to continue training.

The cloud fields were spelled so that they didn’t retain any damage or changes, otherwise their field would probably have been demolished within a week of Lars and Rhen’s practices there. But then again, that was what they were designed for, as practice grounds for experienced sorcerers and swordsingers who wouldn’t be able to let loose anywhere else.

Tonight, however, Rhen and Lars were going on a team mission into the genie’s lamp. Lars unrolled it from its cloth covering and laid it on the ground, next to a pile of potions. They were both taking many with them, as well.

Practice had helped, but fighting a mass of myrs with only the two of them and the reasonably good weapons that they had borrowed from the school armory since their first borderline-disastrous run was still insanely hard.

Which was good, Rhen reminded herself, as she rounded yet another corner of the castle, her breath baited. It meant they were learning, if it was hard.

Today it was her turn to be bait. Lars got to lounge around by the entrance, all relaxed, while she-

“Hey, you! Ugly! Yeah, you, the one with the scrawny little legs and stubby horns!” Rhen called.

The myr, who had been ignoring her, turned once she mentioned the legs, and when she got to the horns it charged.

Rhen grinned as she ran. After a while you got a sense of what parts myrs were most self-conscious about.

Except she needed him to call a few friends, as well.

“A troll could out-run you!” She shouted back, for good measure. Myrs and trolls had not gotten along since before Ahriman’s first rising.

The myr took a deep breath and charged.

She dodged, skittering around another corner-

“Hey, what’s going on here?” growled two myrs, clearly just woken from a nap. She gulped and zoomed between them, barely passing them, and then the first myr barreled around the corner and the chase was on.

Where was Lars? She thought, as her lungs started to ache. Where was that stupid sorcero-

A blast of magic from the next corner barely missed her as it passed her to singe one of the myrs, giving off the disgusting stench of burnt fur.

“You could have hit me!” She protested, as Lars emerged, smirking.

“Yeah, but I didn’t,” he said. “Care to lend a hand?”

At last she could turn and face the myrs. But another one had emerged from somewhere-

“I’ve been evading that bugger, he showed up by the entrance, not a pretty picture,” Lars said in between spells-

And then they were back to back and fighting for their lives, as always.

Rhen broke formation for a moment to lunge at the closest myr’s belly, momentarily exposed. She plunged her sword in, and as she drew it out the myr poofed into nothing- that always happened, in the Genie’s lamp.

She drew back, but not before another myr’s kicked out viciously with a hoofed foot and caught her in the ribs. She had misjudged the distance between them.

“Augh,” she managed to groan, coughing up blood.

“Are you okay?” Lars said.

“Shut up and concentrate on fighting,” she said. “I’ll be fine.” She snatched a potion from the looped belt she was hanging the bottles from and drank it. Thank the goddess Lars had money to buy elixirs, she did not think meat and cheese was enough for this kind of fighting.

The three remaining myrs had retreated beyond a corner, which was always a sign that when they came back they would be using a unified strategy. It was just a question of whether she and Lars would be able to catch on fast enough to evade it.

But when they emerged it was in standard pincer formation, kind of disappointing actually, not really a challenge at all.

She kept her eye out for a twist- some sudden lunge by a flank myr or anything like that- but instead they proved, relatively speaking, easy to dispatch, especially once Lars caught them in a group spell and critically injured two of them.

“Alright,” Rhen said at last, as they cleaned off the loot they had gathered and packed it with the rest of their things, “let’s get going. I’m starved.”


A/N: had to re-write the fight scene to fit with minotaurs myrs. Was less of a big deal than I thought it would be, actually- but I miss the dragon version T_T
And now I'm trying to coax the characters into going along with me on this one section I am having extreme difficulty writing, slkjfdsdkljf.

Hahaha! Rhen got so jealous of Amalia! Even if she didn't realize that XD Great update!

(it's funny because lars is so, so not interested =D)

nya! I almost got as mad as Rhen was! ^^ I love how your writing can do that!

Sorry for being a nitpicky bastard... But I don't think those minotaurs can talk. They're not exactly minotaurs after all. They're "myrs", they just look like minotaurs for the lack of variety in the game making programs' default pixels

skfdsklfjsdlkjf.

changing minotaur--> myr is not a big deal.
But I specifically need a species of sentient monster.

lkgjdflkjgfdkljglfkdjglkj

suggestions? Except I don't know how it would help since I don't think Rhen/Lars will be regularly traveling off to the demon cave every day to fight monsters. the whole point of the lamp was that it was convenient and instant


(waaah I dun wanna rewrite it. TT___TT)

*pats Blurble on the back* It's okay it's okay... Don't mind my outlandish corrections. I'm just a nitpicky nerd D:

If you really take my words to heart and feel like you MUST change them, you can describe the myrs as "minotaurs with odd colours and wings". If I remember correctly, regular minotaurs are brown like cows and don't have wings. These "myrs" are red and purple and they have wings.

OTL THIS is the reason why I can't write: I'm JUST THAT NITPICKY that everything SEEMED WRONG to me so I make a BAJILLION corrections and in the end got so tired of it that I eventually threw out the story altogether.

No except I do like my fanfic to be as accurate as I can get them...


dlkjdfdfskl.
whatever.

alefhvbkjhbvs Same with me. That's why I've been going around asking AV-related questions... Can't exactly go back to the game every time to check up facts.

Anything else you need?

PS: edited my post a bit up there. Not sure if you saw what changed.

(thanks for the corrections. I'll go back and change it. just not tonight. tonight my procrastinating form work is taking the form of marathon-reading Nodame Cantabile)

I'm just a nitpicky nerd. Glad you don't mind my nitpicky-ness.

Actually, there ARE dragons in lampland. The lightning dragons are at the outside area of lampland while the myrs are in the castle.

Uh, I never said there aren't any dragons. I just said there's only ONE dragon so it's impossible for it to attack in flocks. ONE =/= many.