Elias pressed himself against the cold, damp stone of the alley wall,watching as the five men, their faces contorted into snarls, closed in on the boy. They were big, burly men with the kind of rough-and-tumble look that promised a quick and painful end.
Suddenly, the boy's arms flew up.
He didn't use Flow. Instead, a flurry of small paper cards burst from his sleeves, each with strange writings on them. They fluttered through the air like a sudden flurry of confetti. The men laughed, their jeers echoing in the narrow alley. But their laughter turned to shouts of confusion as the cards attached themselves to the men and exploded with a series of sharp, stinging pops. The men stumbled back, rubbing their bodies, momentarily stunned.
The boy, ever so calm, took out two small, folded paper figurines. They looked like little men, no bigger than his thumb. He flicked them at two of the men, and as the figurines landed on their chests.The two men, previously aggressive and confident, suddenly stopped, their bodies now moving in a jerky, unnatural rhythm. Their eyes glazed over, and they turned on their own companions, punching and kicking with a surprising ferocity.
Elias was stunned.
They resembled the charms he'd read about from old-world Oriental cultures. One of the thugs, a massive man with a thick neck, managed to tear the figurines off his two comrades as they both strangled him. Panting,he and another thug advanced on the boy, their faces etched with anger. "Enough of your tricks, kid!" the thug yelled. "We're going to teach you a lesson."
The boy, still calm, pulled out another piece of paper and flicked it at the men. As he threw it, it unfurled in the air, transforming in a puff of smoke into a large, shadowy serpent with glowing red eyes. The serpent coiled itself around the thugs, its body a suffocating blackness, its eyes burning with a silent fury.
' Is that....a Shikigami?' Elias thought, surprised by what he was seeing.
That day in the forest, he had thought the boy was just loony, spouting nonsense about evil spirits. But seeing this, perhaps he really could take on 'evil spirits.'
"Leave." the boy said, releasing the serpent,the card flying back into his hand. The men, now completely petrified, ran off, not even bothering to look back. As they passed Elias's hiding spot, he saw, as one of them adjusted his collar, a tattoo on the back of his neck: a blue rose being pierced by a sword.
He waited a bit before finally stepping out, the boy had turned and was on guard, his hands raised in front of him, ready to fight. He saw Elias and relaxed his stance.
"Oh,it's just a kid," he said, a look of relief on his face.
"I'm not a kid!" Elias snapped back, feeling a surge of annoyance.
The boy tilted his head and then a slow smile spread across his face.
"Oh," he said, "it's you. The kid from the forest. What are you doing here. And where's you sister?"
"I could ask you the same thing," Elias shot back.
The boy, with a laid-back, carefree air, put his hands behind his head.
"Ah, that," he said, "just a bit of trouble,you know how it is.Nothing to worry about though,they're gone now." He then looked Elias up and down, a curious look on his face.
"Now it's your turn.'Sup?"
"I came alone to attend to some business." Elias replied.
"I see," the boy said scratching his cheek and shrugging. Elias wanted to ask about the strange paper cards and the serpent summom, but at that moment, a loud rumble echoed through the quiet alley. The boy's stomach.
He rubbed his stomach with a sheepish grin. "Well," he said, "I suppose I'll have to scavenge for food again."
"Again?" Elias asked.
"Yeah," the boy said, his voice dropping slightly.
"I lost all my money when I came to the city. I've been scavenging from the bins behind restaurant and cafés." He paused, his gaze slowly shifting to Elias, a menacing smile creeping across his face.
Elias felt a pang of unease.
"W-What is it?" he asked his hands moving into his jacket and grabbing his daggers.
The boy took a step towards him his eyes arching up into crescent like slits.
'How soes one even attain such an expression?'
"Say,you wouldn't happen to have some change on you, would you?"
Elias felt a twinge of reluctance. He only had a few Pounds left from his purchase with S.K. and he was reluctant to part with them. But, this was an opportunity, a chance to get answers.
"I suppose I do," he said.
They ended up at a restaurant, a small, bustling place with a strong, comforting scent of various dishes. The boy was on his fifth plate of food, devouring it with a gusto that made Elias's eyes twitch.
"Right," Elias began, "now that you're full..."
"Wait, wait, wait," Lyle said, pointing his spoon at Elias, his mouth full of food. He swallowed, then leaned forward, a serious look on his face.
"We can't have a conversation if we don't know each other's names. It's just... rude."
" So is eating with you mouth open." Elias replied but the boy has already turned away, waving a waiter over.
"More of the same, please!"
Elias's eyes twitched again. He took a deep breath and buried his emotions putting on a smile.
"My name is Elias," he said, leaving out his family name.
The boy simply nodded, his mouth full.
"I'm Lyle," he said, and with that, he returned to his meal.
There was a break were Elias watched, mesmerised, as Lyle finished his sixth plate of food.Finally, with a loud burp and a satisfied sigh, Lyle leaned back in his chair, his stomach looking suspiciously rounder than before.
"Right," Elias began, his voice a little strained.
"Now that you're full, can you tell me about those... things you used back there?"
Lyle just smiled, that same laid-back, carefree smile that hadn't left his face since he'd had his fill.
"Those? Oh, those are just 'Talismans'. They're basically tools that let us perform specific tricks with nature. They're sort of like the Artifacts you lot use, but they're not really the same."
He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a small, folded paper talisman. Elias's eyes were fixed on the object. Lyle then held out his palm and, with a flick of his finger, a tiny, paper serpent manifested from the talisman, coiling and uncoiling on his palm. It was exactly like the one in the alley, only this one was much smaller in scale.
"Can I... can I take a closer look?" Elias asked,his eyes fixed on the serpent.
Lyle, with a shrug, handed over a talisman. Elias held it, his Flow Perception now buzzing with a powerful surge of energy. He peered into the talisman's essence. Just as he suspected, it had a series of Arrays written into it, but they were different,more specific. Instead of being used to instruct the characteristics like with an Artifact,the one in his hand specifically used a binding array to trap an explosion onto the paper. Elias turned it over.
'How do you bind an explosion onto a sheet of paper anyway?' he made a mental note to research it later and raised his head to look at Lyle.
" So,where did you come from?You itinerants I mean." He asked.
Lyle just looked at him, an amused glint in his eyes.
"Huh? You actually don't know about us? That's a first. I've not met anyone who doesn't know who we are. We're a bit of a story, you know. What have you been using your time for?"
Elias was a little offended.
"I've been mostly studying Flow and I daresay I know more about it than you do." he said defensively.
Lyle just snorted.
"Everything? Mate, you don't even know who my people are. Also ,if you want to know more about Flow and it's relation with the world you can't leave out 'the world' part." He sighed.
"We're the Itinerants. The reminants of a bygone nation. The nation of Aeridor."
"That's... that's the name of the continent." Elias pointed out.
"Obviously." Lyle said.
"The continent was named after the bygone nation. Back then,the world only had one large landmass with a number of nations living there.There's not much known about it since so much time has passed,but we do know that it was destroyed during the 'Sundering' ,a cataclysm that happened in the Third Era that caused the first continent split apart into the smaller ones we have today."
Elias was stunned. He'd never heard of any of this. Well, he hadn't actually put in the effort to learn about the world beyond general knowledge.
'Technically this is general knowledge as well so....'
Elias sighed and made another mental note.