Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was a cold, blustery day in Gaia, and Trio and I were out in the woods with our Puckappy, Mani and Missy. The two little moose-like creatures were walking close to each other, most likely to keep warm. I smiled, watching as they leaned against one another, and attempted to keep upright on the bumpy trail.

"Say, Trio, wouldn't it be neat if they could talk?"

Trio laughed a bit. "So they could tell you how crazy you looked with that hockey stick, going after Konaru's puck?"

I looked at her out of the corner of eye, making a face. When I glanced back at the Puckappy, I noticed Mani staring at something in the bushes. I stopped and tried to peer inside myself, then took a step back.

"Trio!" I hissed. "There's somebody in those bushes..."

She looked at me oddly, then called out, "Hey, you! What do you think you're doing?"

I quickly stepped behind Trio as the bushes rustled, then this strange man I had never seen stepped out; I'd encountered too many strange things in Gaia not to be wary... He was dressed in rags, bandages on his hands and feet and a bulging messenger bag at his side. His eyes were wild, and his hair wilder.

"An' wha' do ye want?" He glared at us both. "Ye think yer safe, do ye??"

Trio blinked, surprised, then looked at me. "I'm pretty sure we can take him," she whispered. "'Course, he could just be crazy..."

"'Crazy', am I?" He reached into his bag, rummaging around. At the motion, I ducked further behind Trio, who I could feel tensing, preparing for whatever the guy might drag out of that bag. He withdrew his hand...

And thrust a sealed scroll in our direction.

Trio choked back a laugh. "You ought to be careful with those things, you know."

"Aye, laugh if ye wanna!" He threw the scroll at Trio, and as she was too surprised to deflect it, it bounced off her chest. "Ye'll learn better, ye will!" He drew out another scroll, and threw this one at me, then turned and ran off into the bushes again.

Trio stood there, blinking a moment. "Um, Tera? What just happened?"

As Mani trotted over to sniff at the scroll at my feet, I shook my head. "I'm not sure, but I don't think we've seen the last of that guy..."

I bent down to pick up the scroll, and immediately felt the hairs on my neck lift; there was some sort of strange energy radiating from the scroll. Drawing my hand back, I looked up quickly to warn Trio, only to see that she had already picked hers up, and was fiddling with the seal on it.

"This is neat... It looks like it's got my name on it, here in the wax." I must have looked pretty odd, because when she turned to meet my eye and grin, the grin froze on her face. "You okay? Your eyes are bugging out..."

"Names... bad..." I managed to choke, trying to grab her scroll from her hand. Trio easily moved it out of my reach, and snagged my scroll off the ground while she was at it.

"Names bad?" She snickered, looking at my scroll, which had a silver seal, while hers was blue. "This one's got your name on it. Maybe it's just a funky Valentine?"

Before I could respond, there was a bellow of rage from off in the woods. "YE GREAT BEASTIE!! YE CANNA DO THA'!!"

A rustle of brush, and one of my Zurui, Lucy, came racing out, the strange man's bag in her mouth. She ran over to me, and then ducked behind me, grinning slightly. To my horror, the man was right after her, face twisted up in a scowl. When he saw Lucy hiding behind me, his eyes about popped out of his head; I could see veins throbbing in his forehead from where I stood.

"Fine, ye think ye can 'andle 'em, do ye?"

Trio looked perplexed, as I frantically tried to yank the bag from Lucy. "Handle what, exactly? A couple of rolls of paper?"

"Trio... Don't antagonize him..." I was practically whimpering, and on my last yank, Lucy let go of the bag, causing me to tumble over backwards. I threw the bag at the man. "No, we don't! Take them back, really!"

He shook his head, a crazed gleam in his eyes. "Nay, ye can have 'em..." Digging around in his bag once more, he dragged out another handful of scrolls and dropped them at our feet. "See 'ow well ye an' yer kind 'andle 'em, once th' sigils break... Curses on th' lot o' ye!"

"S-sigils?" I started to feel faint.

Trio snorted. "Sure, thanks. Us and our 'kind' appreciate the old musty paper rolls." She reached out a hand and patted me on the shoulder. "Don't mind Tera here, she's just a little wary of new things. Had this close encounter with a puck, you see..."

The man wasn't listening; he had already turned and run back into the woods.

"Great." Trio looked at the scrolls, scattered on the ground. "Now what do we do?"

The scrolls were driving me mad, pure and simple. It had been a week since both mine and Envy's had opened, and I was still no closer to figuring out what the symbols on them meant. My eyes burned from hours of staring at book after book full of various signs, symbols and mystical pictures; it hadn't been until I had come across my old work pad that the realization struck--The old man had been mumbling about sigils. Everything I knew about sigils indicated that he had, most likely, designed the symbols himself, based on a personal meaning that only he would know.

A low growl built in the back of my throat. Sigils were a serious business, used mainly for summonings and curses; this loony had given us nine scrolls that, in all likelihood, had different sigils on them, and had quite plainly said that he wanted to curse us all. The growl faded as a chill ran over me: Trio and I had given these things to some of our closest friends. Concern for them overrode any fear I might have continued to have. Quietly thanking the powers that be for Trio's forethought to ask everyone to keep their scrolls here, I went over to the table where they rested to examine them more closely.

It was as I was passing the door to the backroom that I heard rustling from within. Thinking it to be Aleta, or maybe one of her pets, I reached for the knob, but hesitated as a low mumbling reached my ears.

"Damned fools, ye all dun know wha' yer messin' wi'..."

Him. A rush of fury washed over me, something that I had not felt in years. I could sense the familiar smile, wicked and twisted, flitting across my face, and I smothered it. As upset as I might be with this man, I had no need to revert to what I once was... With a quick flick of the wrist, I had the door opened and slipped inside, then shut and locked it behind me.

The man whirled around, and from the sudden loss of blood in his face, it was apparent that I hadn't been entirely successful at wiping the fury from my eyes. He had something in his hand, and I tensed, reflexively reaching for weapons I no longer carried; good thing, too, for I saw that it was a jar in his hand, sealed at that, and nothing dangerous.

"Wha' be ye doin' 'ere?" He quickly stuffed the jar back into his satchel, eyeing me suspiciously.

"Me?" His audacity almost floored me. "This is my storeroom, in my building! What are ye doing here?" I barely registered that my old accent had flitted out, but the man smiled at it.

He fumbled around in his satchel again. "Came ta see 'ow ye an' yer friends were makin' out..."

The growl came again, and before I knew what had come over me, I had him by the front of his shirt, was lifting him up and slamming him into the boxes against the wall. The thought of my friends, in possible danger, was too much for me to take. "Listen here," I hissed into his face. "I want to know what ye have given to us, and I want to know now."

Rather than become alarmed, that infuriating smile grew. "Now, now, lil' missy... Ye'll no' be wantin' ta treat me like tha'..." As I glared at him in disbelief, he continued. "Ye'll be findin' out soon 'nough wha' th' scrolls be doin'. Th' Sigils, 'twere too powerful fer me seals ta hold. Iffen ye be tha' curious, ye can 'ave this ta help ye..."

There was a sudden whistling noise, and sharp pain exploded in my head as he hit me in the temple with something hard. My vision going white, I attempted to hold onto him, but he was too quick, shoving me away and making a break for the door. I could hear the bolt being shoved open, the creak of hinges as he burst out of the storeroom, and I fell onto my knees, a throbbing headache beginning.

As he called out something in the mainroom behind me, I I felt the object that he had used to hit me brush against my hands: The glass jar...