Back to the Past - A Chrono Trigger Medieval Story
Prologue - The Kidnapping
By Lurian
601 AD
The wind blew chilly
against the battlements of Guardia Castle. The Mystic shivered and looked
around, nervous. Of course, there was no reason to
worry, he told himself. It was late and everybody in Guardia Castle should be
asleep by now. Besides, his disguise was perfect. He had worked very hard on it
for the past few months.
Three months ago he had
joined Guardia's army under a false name. He had told everybody that he was from
Porre, a distant city. This way, nobody
wondered why he seemed to have no family or friends around Truce. He had spent
these three months busy with the novice soldier's standard tasks, which
consisted mostly in standing guard in the castle and taking fighting classes.
Not that he needed any fighting classes, but when you've just joined the army,
you're not suppose to be a master swordsman. Unless you're a Mystic agent working undercover.
Two weeks ago he had
volunteered for the most unpopular task that could ever be assigned to a
soldier: the night watch. For that the other soldiers were very grateful, and he
had even become a little popular among his fellows. Whenever they asked him the
reason why he had volunteered for such a loathed job,
he said that he couldn't sleep very well at night. That was partially
true, for many Mystics were not too comfortable with the bright light of the
sun, being
blinded by it, and so they prefered to sleep during day hours. Not every Mystic
had this problem with sunlight, and those who did generally lurked in dark
places, as caves and such. Though the sun didn't bother him much, he thought
that it was better to stay on the safe side and avoid it as much as he could.
"The humans are
right, this is indeed a boresome job", he thought to himself. Nobody would
be around at those late hours, and there was absolutely nothing to do. Most of
the humans who were assigned to this job felt tempted to fall asleep, and ended
up getting caught and suffering the consequences for
their lack of attention. Nothing different or interesting would ever happen
during the night watch. But tonight it would be different. Tonight, his
routine would go through a drastic change, and he couldn't make a mistake. Yes,
he had good reasons to be nervous.
Taking a deep breath to
calm himself down, he began to walk as casually as possible towards the door.
Carefully, he espied first to see if by any ill-chance there was someone still
awake at those late hours. There wasn't, and that was good. The Knight Captain
was very severe with people who tried to shirk
their duties. One of his fellow soldiers who was caught off his post had been
sent to prison for a whole week This was the sort of thing that could ruin his
plan. He continued to walk as silently as possible, crossing rooms, walking down
stairs, doing his best to merge with the shadows. It certainly was his lucky
night, he thought as he reached his goal, the empty throne room of the castle.
He had
encountered only another soldier, and fortunately the guy was so sleepy that he
barely recognized him.
"You're late!" He jumped at the sound of the irritating voice that
squealed behind him. The Mystic turned around, ready to fight, a hostile look in
his
face.
"Hey, take it easy! It's me!" The look on his face grew less hostile,
but it was still not friendly at all. Standing before him was a young girl,
dressed like one of the maids of the castle. In her hands she had a huge sack
with the word POTATOES written on it. Only that there were currently no
potatoes in the
empty sack.
"If I didn't need you so much to carry out the plan, I would kill you right
here and now." He growled.
"And if
I didn't know you better, I would say that you're just a little bit
nervous..." She teased him. "Let's get our mission over with, so that
you can relax."
They knew exactly where they had to go and what they had to do. They simply had
to knock at a door. It was the door to a very important person's bedroom.
When the door opened, they took advantage of their victim's sleepiness to
cast a spell that would keep anyone asleep for hours, no matter what happened
around. And in what seemed like two seconds, the sack wasn't empty any more.
Neither was it filled with potatoes.
"Now I'll take this down to the kitchen." The girl said and at the
same time a glowing light encircled her body. Her form slowly began to change,
and it kept
changing until her appearance was an exact copy of that of her fellow soldier.
"Go, and be careful not to be seem. People would find it weird to see a
soldier carrying a sack of potatoes around Guardia Castle". He said, his
form beginning to
change as well, until he looked exactly like the unconscious person in the sack.
"Don't worry. And even if someone sees me, so what? Tomorrow I'll be
far away from this place."
"Not so
fast, stupid! First you'll have to talk to the Cook and the Knight Captain. Tell
them that your grandmother is sick, probably going to die,
or something like that. It won't be good for us if a soldier and a maid
disappear like that from Guardia Castle. People might get suspicious."
"They'll probably think we ran away together." The soldier chuckled,
and left the room, dragging the sack.
When he was alone, the Mystic sighed heavily. So far, so good. But it was not
over yet. A few hours before, just after sunset, a supply caravan from Dorino
had
arrived at the castle. It's cargo had been unloaded, and the men were spending
that night in the castle, resting. All too well and normal. But he knew that
this was not an ordinary caravan, and those were not ordinary men. The caravan
had been attacked just before it arrived at Truce, and the original crew had
been replaced by Mystics. Tomorrow, they would leave with a very different
cargo. He smiled to himself, focusing now on the task ahead. The victory of the
Mystics now depended only on his acting skills. He had spent the last three
months studying his victim's routine, personality, tastes and all those other
little peculiarities that made a person unique. No, he wasn't going to fail.
Soon he would have his revenge on the human race. And if he was lucky, he would
have
his revenge on a few specific human beings. And with these pleasant thoughts in
mind, he fell asleep. The last sound he heard was the voice of the time
keeper
of the castle.
"Two o'clock and all is well."
.