Milich had Kasios sing for me, today.  It was rather nice... I guess.  He seemed to like it, although I didn't see what was so great about just sitting there listening to someone hold a high note for a really really long time.  Although I guess Milich had nothing else to do while he waited for this Toran ship to get back to the Toran Republic.  He only came along because he liked the idea of a "free cruise" or something like that.  Kasios held that note forever.  It was almost a new record... until a shoe came flying out of nowhere and slammed into Kasios' head, knocking her down.

"SHUT UP!  Shut up shut up shut up SHUT UP!"  Sonya glared at Milich and the unconscious Kasios from the doorway.  "I can't stand it anymore!  Every day while on this ship she sings that damn song with that damn screeching ear-piercing voice!"

Sonya walked up to Kasios and picked up her shoe, glared at Milich again, then started to leave.

"How dare you!"  Milich scoffed at Sonya as she left.  "You obviously have no appreciation of the higher arts!"

Viki figured that Milich was maybe a little too similar to Vincent for her tastes, so she followed after Sonya.  "So, Lady Sonya, when do I get to see McDohl again?"

"When you find him!"  Sonya blew Viki off.

"Oh..."  Viki stopped and blinked.  "Yea, I guess that makes sense.  Well, I'd better start searching for him then."

A loud voice rang through the halls of the ship.  "Lunch time!"  Shortly afterwards, Viki and Sonya were run over by a ton of sailors anxious to eat.

The lunch hall was... well, who cares about how a lunch hall looks?

"Stew!?  You call this stew?  I've eaten gumbo more exotic than this garbage!"  Milich slammed the stew down in front of Chef Antonio.

Antonio went back to the kitchen while mumbling to himself.  "Well, I never!"  Upon hearing himself, he paused.  "Oh great!  I'm already starting to talk like Milich... or maybe it's from being around all these gay sailors."

One of the sailors walked up to Sonya.  "Lady Sonya, there have been reports of ships mysteriously being attacked in the oceans around Highland.  We suspect it might be from the island nation of Geronya in the Crystal Lake nearby.  Just thought I should warn you."  The sailor walked away.

"I'll make a note of it."  Sonya replied.

Viki began to notice that several male sailors were hitting on each other.  "Um... Lady Sonya?"

Sonya had been about to begin eating the stew in front of her when Viki interupted her.  "What now?  You're not homophobic, are you?"

"Homophowhat?"

"Look, it's just so much easier for me as a young female admiral this way.  Last thing I need is a ton of Sheenas bugging me when I have a ton of other things to do."  Sonya began eating her stew.

Viki looked around.  "Ton of Sheenas?  Where?"

"Besides,"  Sonya sighed.  "How could I care for anyone else when I've already lost the greatest man on earth?"  Sonya became lost in a train of thought.  "Ah, Master Teo.  How I miss all those moonlit nights we used to spend together."

Milich's grin was so big that everyone noticed it.

Sonya stood up and reached out ahead of herself.  "I can remember it perfectly.  How we would spend hours on end with each other merely talking and enjoying each other's company.  But we never even had the chance to get in a good dance before you had to leave me, did we?"

Kasios seldom opened her eyes.  She concentrated on sound more than sight.  But this event was an exception.  "My Master Milich, what did you do to her?"

Milich laughed.  "Ha, tis nothing to worry about.  I merely added an extra... ingredient to her slop."

"STEW!"  Antonio screamed.

Kasios sighed.  "Must you always use those hallucenogenic flowers, my lord?"

"Nothing to fear, my dear."  Milich kissed Kasios' hand.  "The effects are only temporary, and... huh?"

"But now is the perfect time, isn't it?"  Sonya walked up to Milich and put her hand to his face.  "Why don't we dance now, Teo?"

Milich was taken aback.  "Well, I er..."

"Come on!  Just one, maybe.  Until you leave me again forever."  Sonya took Milich by the hand.

"Okay, this is enough.  Lady Sonya, I regret to inform you that I am not Master Teo!"  Milich yanked his hand back.

Sonya stared at him in shock, then screamed.  "Everyone, look out!  That's not Master Teo!  That's a monster disguised as him!  Evil beast, I shall now send you back to hell from whence you came!"

Milich had only enough time to say one sentence as Sonya charged at him with her sword.  "Oh, this doth not bode well..."
 

***
 

With Milich in the infirmary and Sonya having hangover problems, Viki decided to go on deck and enjoy the view of the ocean.  She was hoping that she could see the wonderful sea farther than the eye could see, but instead she found herself staring at the docks of L'Portierre... then at the wide open sea... then at L'Portierre again.  Viki wondered to herself if she should go tell Sonya that the ship was turning in circles.  Figuring that Sonya would probably still be hallucinating, Viki decided to take the issue to the helmsman, instead.

Blargo was barking orders at the helmsman.  "Dammit!  It's still behind us!  Turn the ship around!"

"The ship's been turning around in circles for eight hours, sir."  The helmsman continued to turn the steering wheel.

"Well, keep turning!  My sense can't be wrong!"

"Whatever, sir."

Viki decided to see if the view at the front of the ship was any different than the circling view at the back of the ship.  Of course, it wasn't.  And now she had to put up with Blargo's screaming behind her, too.

Blargo looked into his crystal ball.  "Wait!  It's in front of us now!  Full speed ahead!"

"Sir, L'Portierre is in front of us."

"Details, details!  Just go!"

"Yes, sir."
 

***
 

Since that mean witch came and destroyed his father's business, little Timmy Tottlesworth was feeling much better, now.  His mother had taken him all the way over to the fishing town of L'Portierre to enjoy some fishing.  Timmy Tottlesworth's mother had a wonderful way of always making him feel better when he felt down in the dumps.  It wasn't the fishing he enjoyed, so much as simply being with his mother.  So Timmy Tottlesworth was feeling really great today as he boarded the rented fishing boat, sat down next to his mom, and they shoved off to the ocean to catch some fish.

"Mommy!  Mommy!  Look!  I caught something!"  Timmy Tottlesworth eagerly displayed his .2 pound whitefish to his mother, then gave it to her.

"That's sweet, dear."

Yes, today was a great day to forget about that evil witch and just sit back and relax.

Until his fishing boat got crushed by a massive flagship going full speed ahead.
 

***
 

The ensueing crash sent Viki flying off the front of the ship and into the ground as the ship crushed the entire fishing town of L'Portierre and the town was destroyed forever.  Sonya Shulen burst out of her quarters after the crash and looked around the ruins of the town.  "Oh shit..."

Blargo smacked the helmsman.  "Look at what your stupidity did, you fool!"

The few villagers that were alive could only stare at the large ship that destroyed their village.  Sonya and several Toran soldiers exitted the boat and surveyed the damage.  The great admiral of the Toran Republic muttered to herself.  "This is not going to be good for our relations with Highland."

"Oh, this doesn't seem very good."  Viki commented.  "You should apologize, huh?"

"Yea, I probably should."  Sonya turned to one of the sailors.  "Get me a status check on the damage."

Some sailors ran off, then returned moments later.  "Status check completed, Lady Sonya."

"Damages?"

"Eight million potch worth of boats, houses, and docks destroyed, Lady Sonya."

"Casualties?"

"About seventy dead, thirty wounded, all Highland civilians, including women, and children."

"Attitude?"

"The Highland villagers are very very pissed, maam."

"Our current situation?"

"Screwed."

"Opinion?"

"They're going to war over this, maam.  Which means that even more people are going to be killed, and this time some of them will be Toran people, too.  Oh, and Kasim will probably be executed on the spot if word of this reaches L'Renouille while he's there."

"Has anyone left for L'Renouille to report this, yet?"

"No, Lady Sonya.  They're too busy staring at us wondering what the hell is going on.  Although a couple are packing their things."

"We don't have anyone else here besides my personal units, right?"

"Aye, Lady Sonya!  Besides the few soldiers that left with Kasim, chef Antonio, Milich (who's in the infirmary),and those magicians we picked up, we are all willing to die for you."  The soldier glanced at the exit to the town.  "Lady Sonya, some people just ran away in fear."

"What?!  We don't have much time then, huh?"  Sonya stopped to contemplate the situation.  "If they report this to L'Renouille, I'm nearly positive that Highland will go to war with us.  I've heard that they've gone to war with Jowston over something as inconspicuous as a small brigade being supposedly slaughtered by Jowston when there was no evidence at all that Jowston did it.  Knowing that crazy prince of their's, they'll probably start off by loping off Kasim's head, and even I don't want THAT to happen.  Highland is a powerful military country.  Prince Ruka Bright probably won't care for our alliance against Jowston when he has like fifty other enemies of the city state to ally against.  War with Highland will only mean more death and destruction, and worst of all, my navy is STILL useless because the only Highland town near the ocean was just destroyed by my navy's flagship!  Did those runaways get out of sight, yet?  You saw how many ran, right?"

"L'Renouille is a considerable distance away.  The few land forces we brought along could probably catch up to them on horseback.  Oh, and yes, we had several soldiers take a count while making the status check.  Why?"

Sonya motioned to Blargo.  "Hey, do me a favor.  Take Viki here to the loading quarters until I tell you that she can leave."

Viki didn't know what was going on, but Blargo caught on to Sonya's vague hint, grabbed Viki by the arm, and dragged her back to the ship.
 

***
 

The room she was in had no windows.  Viki put her ears to the wall but was too deep within the ship to hear anything outside.  "What are they doing?"

"Stuff."  Blargo grunted as he read a book.

Viki looked around the room, but the only door out was guarded by two younger magicians wearing the same type of dark blue robe that Blargo wore.  Since there was nothing else to do, Viki decided to try to start a conversation with one of them.

"Hi, so... um... how are things?"

The magician she was talking to blushed.  The other magician elbowed him.  "Hey, answer the pretty lady!  I think she likes you."

"Okay, okay!"  The magician turned to Viki and bowed.  "My day has turned lovely thanks to you, m'lady."

This spontaneous act confused Viki.  "Huh?"

"KNOCK IT OFF, YOU TWO!"  Blargo snapped his fingers and the two magicians both turned into cows, which began to moo their annoyance at their new shape.

Something about seeing those two get turned into cows rekindled a memory in Viki.  "T... Transformation spells?"

Viki walked up to Blargo, who was entrenched in his book again.  "U... Uncle Lardy?"

Blargo looked up from his book.  "What did you call me?!?  LARDY?"

Blargo stood up and towered above Viki, glaring down at her.  Viki stepped back, surprised.  "Oh!  I'm sorry!  But... that was what I used to call my father's friend, about two years ago.  H... He was studying transforming spells and wanted to become a magi master in them."

Blargo grunted then sat back down.  "Bah, I've been one of the six magi masters for fifteen years, stupid girl!  Now don't bother me again with your stupid babbling."

"Huh... HUH?!?  Stupid?  Yea, you're right!  Uncle Lardy would never have called me that!"  Viki waved her wand.  "I've had enough of this!  I'm teleporting out of here back to L'Portierre!"

Viki dissappeared instantly.  Blargo glared at the two cows guarding the door.  "What the hell are you two staring at?"

The cows moo'd "Mooooooo!"

Blargo snapped his fingers and they were instantly humans again.... female ones, that is.

"AAAAH!!"  The two magicians screamed upon looking at each other.  "WE'RE GIRLS!  Although I must say, we're rather pretty girls, at least."

Blargo smashed the table he was reading at.  "Dammit!  I'm a master magi and I can't even get my transforming spells to ever work the way I want to.  So, what do you want to tell me?"

"Well," one of the beautiful young female magicians remarked.  "I guess you forgot, but a long long time ago the kids used to call you Uncle Lardy, remember?"

"They did?  I thought they called me Uncle Blargy."

"Nope," the other girl commented.  "I specifically remember "Lardy."  You don't forget something as funny as that."

"Hmm.  Well, that was a like twenty or more years ago, much more than just the two years that the stupid girl said.  She must have been thinking about a different Uncle Lardy."
 

***
 

"Where am I?  This doesn't look like L'Portierre.  I mean, it does look kinda similar, but I don't remember L'Portierre having all this fire and blood around the last time I was here."  Viki glanced around at all the burning houses and flames that she teleported into the middle of.  She walked up to the nearest corpse and poked it with her wand.  "Excuse me, sir, where am I?"

This time, it only took three pokes before Viki realized that corpse was a corpse.

Then the corpse turned over.

Once again, Viki found herself staring at the face of death.  This was another young boy, just like the ones at Tenzan Pass, mercilessly slaughtered, the face wrought with fear.  Instead of fainting, Viki almost cried.  Whereever she was, Highland had done it again.  They had mercilessly slaughtered a bunch of innocent townspeople.

A blow to the back of her head knocked her down, but she was still barely conscious.  Viki turned around to see a soldier raising his sword and about to stab her.

The wierd thing was, while the soldier wasn't wearing any type of insignia or uniform, Viki recognized his face as one of the Toran soldiers that was talking to Sonya moments ago.

"STOP!"  Another soldier, without uniform, grabbed the arm of the soldier about to stab her.  "That's one of the magicians with Lady Sonya, remember?"

The soldier looked at Viki.  "Oh.... oops!  Shoot!"  He helped Viki up.  "My apologies."

If Viki weren't so confused and shocked at the moment, she would have teleported that soldier off a cliff.  "Um.... Yea... What's happening?"

The two soldiers nervously looked at each other.  "Well... um, you see... We're under attack!  Yea, by... evil mutant squirrels!  So you should get back into the ship where it's safe!  Here, we'll escort you!"

Viki found herself once again being dragged back to the ship by other people.

Hey...  I didn't see any evil mutant squirrels.  Mutant squirrels?  Even I know that's ridiculous.  There's no such thing as mutant squirrels.  Now giant flying squirrels with blue capes or squirrelzilla, that's something believable!  And why do I have to be blindfolded?  And why do I keep hearing screams of pain and cries for help?  And arrow shots?  Mutant squirrels don't use arrows, do they?

"Excuse me, can I take this blindfold off?"

"Er... no."

"Why not?"

"Because... um... it's a surprise!"

"SHAZAM!"

Viki teleported the two soldiers into the middle of the ocean and took off her blindfold, just in time to see another soldier in the distance run a defenseless lady through with his sword.
 

***
 

Still shocked, Viki was standing next to Sonya's quarters, listening to the voices inside..

"Is that everyone?"

"Yea, we got them all.  Including all of the run-aways.  And all the fishermen in their boats."

"We left no evidence behind, right?  No one was wearing their Toran insignias, right?"

"Everything went perfectly.  We even made sure to wear those fishermen mocassins so no one would discover any Toran footprints."

"....."

"Lady Sonya?"

"It's been a while since I've had to do something like this.  But at least this time, it was to prevent a war from breaking out.  You all realize that had we not done this, it would have only prolonged more death later on."

"Of course we do."

Sonya wrote something on a piece of paper.  "And now, to put the blame on someone else.  We'll make it like it was that island nation, Geronya, that did this.  After all, they've already supposedly attacked several Highland ships, so what's a little more blame going to do to them?"

A paper airplane flew from the Toran ship and landed into the dirt next to a dead woman.  Inscribed on it was the Geronya insignia.
 

***
 

Little Timmy Tottlesworth crawled onto shore, coughing and choking from all the sea water he swallowed.  He looked at all the carnage, then ran up to a nearby body.

"Mommy!  Mommy!  Speak to me, mommy!"  But the body didn't move.  Timmy Tottlesworth cried.  Why did his mommy have to die?  What was the purpose?  Timmy looked out to the sea and saw the large ship leaving.  At the back of the ship, he saw the witch, staring at the burned down village.

"This is all that evil witch's fault!  She destroyed my father's inn, killed my father, ruined my fishing trip, and killed my mother!  I'll hunt you to the ends of the earth, you evil witch!"  Timmy knelt by the body.  "I'll avenge you, mommy."

"Sweetie, that's not me.  I'm right here.  And your father never died, remember?"

Timmy Tottlesworth turned around and saw his mother, who was also soaking wet, then hugged her.  His mother stared at the ship leaving in the distance, and thanked the gods that she had stayed underneath her capsized boat while those soldiers hunted down all the fishermen.  Unfortunately, she didn't know who was responsible for the attack except for that it was led by the same witch that attacked Kyaro.  Back then, they had just forgotten about the matter, but this time, she was certainly going to have to bring up this event to her brother who had a landlord who knew a government official that had a noblewoman for a wife who had a friend that was a member of the king's court.
 

***
 

Much to Blargo's dismay, Sonya had given up on finding the "waffles" component, and the ship began sailing back towards Toran.  Milich had recovered and knew nothing about what they did to the town of L'Portierre.  I... I don't know what to think.  I haven't been able to put myself together and talk to Sonya about what happened.  Maybe she did the right thing by killing all those people in order to keep them from spreading Highland war hatred against Toran.  But... it doesn't feel right.  So, now I'm back at Milich's room, listening to Kasios sing again.  It's all I can do to help me forget what I saw.

Sonya motioned to Viki from the doorway.  "Pss, Viki, can you come here for a moment?"

Oh no.  So the time has come.  She knows I saw what happened.  What's she going to do to me?  What's going to happen?

Viki walked over to the doorway.  "Y... Yes, Lady Sonya? ? ? ? ? ?"

Sonya gave Viki a shoe.  "Do me a really big favor and throw this at Kasios.  I can't stand that awful singing!"

Is this some kind of test?  I'd better do what she wants.

Viki held up the shoe, rubbed it, then gently spoke, "Fly true, holy shoe."  She then let the shoe fly.

The shoe slammed into Milich's head and knocked him unconscious.  Kasios stared at him wide-eyed in disbelief.
 

***
 

"Is something wrong?"  Antonio looked at Viki as he handed her some stew.

"Huh?  Oh, it's nothing."  Viki took the stew then sat down next to Sonya.  "Lady Sonya, can I talk to you?"

"You had a pretty nice throw there, Viki.  Why, a little to the left and you would have hit the correct target."  Sonya pretended to aim a make believe shoe at an imaginary Kasios, then looked at her stew closely before eating some of it.

"Huh?  Oh, that.  Well, that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."  Viki ate some of her stew, too.  "You see..."

"Okay, I'll be frank with you, Viki."

Viki looked at Sonya.

This is it...

Sonya sighed.  "I.... I made you throw the shoe at Kasios because I was worried that Milich would put hallucenogenic flowers into my food again if I did it.  But since he's unconscious and there's obviously nothing extra in my stew now, everything's all right."

The world began to get lost in a sea of pretty colors to Viki.  Everything began to melt.  Suddenly, all of the melted liquid combined together to form an enormous hideous slime monster.

Viki screamed.  "Oh no!!!"  She quickly took out her wand to teleport the monster away.  "Alakhazam!"  Then all blacked out.

Viki woke up in the infirmary with Sonya and Antonio standing over her.

"This is truly getting annoying having Master Milich and Lady Kasios always mess around with my food!"  Antonio stomped out of the room.

"Hmm..."  Sonya pondered.  "I wasn't expecting Kasios to use any of those flowers, but at least she used them on Viki and not me."

Viki cursed the most vile curse she could think of.  "Fudgenut..."

"Lady Sonya!"  One of the sailors came running into the infirmary.  "There's land ho!  We've spotted a port town!"

"A what?  There isn't another port town for hundreds of miles!"  Sonya ran onto the deck with Viki following her.
 

***
 

Kuskus was a port town in the district of the city-state, South Window.  The people of Kuskus consisted of both merchants and fishermen.  They relied on Lake Deunan to ply their trade.  The lake was in the center of all of the United City-States of Jowston.  All the rivers leading to and from the lake to the great sea or any other region were too small to allow anything besides small fishing boats to pass through.  Indeed, the lake, being in the center of all the city-states and closed off from the outside world, was almost always largely untouched by war.  That's why it surprised the people of Kuskus very much when a very large flagship bearing the flag of one of Jowston's greatest enemies, the Toran Republic, came sailing into port.  It surprised the people even more when one of the six great Toran generals, followed by several Toran soldiers and sailors and magicians and ANOTHER one of the six great Toran generals, exitted the boat, walked up to one of the South Window soldiers on patrol, and said, "Greetings.  Could you please tell me where am I?"

"Y... you're in.... K... Kuskus!"  The officer feared for his life.  He had heard of the six great Toran generals, and they were responsible for killing many South Window and Tinto soldiers in the war against the Toran Republic.

"Kuskus?  Where's that?"  Sonya never heard of Kuskus, because it was an inner city nowhere near the borders of South Window and the Toran Republic.  Sonya mostly paid attention to towns that her navy could actually reach, and for Jowston, the number of those towns was approximately zero.

Fortunately for the officer, he had realized that Sonya had no clue as to where she was.  But he still had to be very careful.  These were two of the six great Toran generals, after all.

"ARREST THESE PEOPLE!"  The officer screamed.  "Throw them in the prison, give them a fair trial, then behead them!"  Before they could react, Sonya, Blargo, Milich, and their men were surrounded by the Kuskus militia and many State soldiers.  Sonya finally realized where she was when she saw the State soldiers arrive in their Jowston uniforms.  While Sonya certainly had enough men to kill a bunch of helpless villagers, she knew she had insufficient forces to fight her way out of the entire Jowston City-State.

Sonya, Blargo, Milich, and their men were quickly handcuffed.

"Unhand me, you savage barbarian cuthroats!"  Milich yelled in common narcisist tongue.

One of the officers was about to handcuff Antonio, but stopped.  "Hey!  I know you!  You're the great chef, Antonio!!!  OH WOW!!!  I'm one of your biggest fans!"

Antonio recieved the complement.  "Why, thank you!"

The officer was ecstatic.  "Could you... come over to our place for dinner?  Any chance my family could try some of your excellent cuisine?"

"Of course!"  Antonio exclaimed.

Viki, who had yet to be handcuffed because she was in the back of the line, was not in the mood to get thrown into prison again.  She ran up to Antonio.  "C... Chef Antonio?  Is there any chance you could take me with you?"

Chef Antonio caught onto Viki's plan (although what he didn't know was that Viki didn't have one).  "Why, of course, MY APPRENTICE, you can come along!"  Antonio winked at Viki.

Viki didn't know what Antonio was talking about.  "Huh?  Apprentice?  What?"

"Sir, shouldn't we arrest them?"  One of the State soldiers asked.

The officer motioned the soldier away.  "Naw, they're just cooks."

The soldier shrugged.  "That girl is awfully oddly dressed for a chef.  Those Torans sure have a wierd dressing code."

As Blargo and Sonya were led away, Blargo cursed.  "Damn!  And I never found that damn waffles component either!  All this damn tracker crystal ball did was make me go in circles!"  Blargo slammed the crystal ball to the ground, but it didn't even crack.

Viki picked it up.  It flashed really loudly, then exploded, catching everyone's attention.  For a moment, everyone stared at her.

Blargo's and Sonya's eyes grew wide.

"SHE HAS IT!!!"  Despite being handcuffed, Blargo and Sonya managed to push away all the State soldiers and charged at Viki before being taken down by even more State soldiers.  Viki stared at them as they were taken away, wondering what they were so hysterical about.