Soul Crafters

Chapter 1: Beio and Saena, Intersecting Vows

	Dusk descended upon the land.  Many people believe that the coming of dusk invites many foul beings into the land, and thus they stay indoors.  They also hang garlic and chains of silver from their windows, in order to deter monsters.  Others call such stories of creatures of the night poppycock, and stay out beyond dusk.  Some of them disappear during their late-hour strolls, and yet the stories about monsters remain unproven and unbelievable to those who didn’t believe them to begin with.

	This night, a town named Bokyburg receives a visitor, going by the name Saena.  She’s on a mission that has led her to the town, which she has heard is where her target lies.  She’s no assassin; she’s merely a black-haired girl with the looks of being around 22, who took up the way of the sword in order to kill an evil man.  The man who took the lives of Saena’s parents is her target.  She vowed to make him pay, and while many argue with her about vengeance not being an appropriate reason to take anyone’s life, she has become so enveloped by the thought of revenge that all she says to them is, "don’t mess with me!"

	She is absolutely sure that she’s found the right place, in her mind it has to be, but if she was to be honest with someone she would say that she had no idea.  Still, the fact that she’d explored so much of the world already meant to her that there were only a few places left for the man to be, not even considering the fact that he might have moved to one of the places she’d already checked during her time away from such an area.  So she confidently strides within the town limits, not realizing that her mission has just become a lot more difficult.

	The head of Bokyburg, the lord if you will, sleeps peacefully while his personal bodyguards patrol every inch of his land.  One of the guards is a brown-haired swordsman named Beio, a warrior of near-legendary caliber who has devoted his life to protecting the land which he patrols.  It isn’t the lord that he's protecting, at least not in his mind.  He is protecting the lord’s daughter, and the thought of that is what motivates him.  He won’t admit it but he's in love with her.  He decided to protect her no matter what when he saved her from a Spiderweed, a carnivorous plant monster that looked and behaved quite like a spider, right down to the way it ate.  From the time that he stepped foot inside the lord’s home carrying the girl, Emily, he vowed that he would protect her no matter what.

	These two vows, the one made by Saena and the one made by Beio, were bound to intersect at some point.  This is where that intersection occurs, one that will drastically change the lives of them both.  As Beio is patrolling the section of the grounds that is his responsibility, he suddenly hears one of his fellow guards yell, "Intruder!"  The swordsman turns to face the direction from which the call came and sees the black-haired woman push off of the roof of a nearby building with her foot and leap toward the building that Beio and the other guards have been protecting.  The guard closest to Beio yells, "Get her Beio; don't let her escape!"  In response Beio jumps at Saena, but ultimately he just gives her one more stepping stone toward her destination, and she doesn't let that chance slip by her.  Using Beio's head like she did the roof of the one building, Saena pushes off with her foot causing Beio to fall to the ground

	Beio ends up on his back while Saena is able to leap to the roof of the building that is being guarded.  Beio growls as he gets up, and jumps at the wall of the building before starting to climb up.  One of his fellow guards runs toward the building a few steps before stopping and asking, "Are you crazy?  You know we're not allowed on or in the lord's house!  We're supposed to guard it and nothing more!"  Beio continues climbing as he looks at the guard who spoke to him and replies, "How are we supposed to protect the ones inside from an intruder that slips past if we follow those instructions all the time?  Just stay there, I'll get her."  The guard Beio was talking to growls, but a second guard places his hand on the first's shoulder and says, "Relax.  In a way he has a point, but more to the point it's his problem if he get's chastised, so don't go making it your own problem when it's not necessary."  The first guard growled again, but soon was able to relax.  After a brief chuckle he muttered under his breath, "Beio, you're such an imbecile."

	Beio grabs the roof as he reaches the top of the wall, and propels himself up and over before flipping from his hands to his feet as he lands, not wanting to impact the roof with his head for obvious reasons.  After looking left and right he runs forward, wondering where Saena had gone.  He doesn't need to wonder for long though, as he finds a trapdoor by tripping on the handle used to open it from the outside.  He rubs his head and curses under his breath before standing up and pulling on the handle of the trapdoor to open it and reveal a hidden stairway.  He hurries down the flight of stairs, and when he gets to the bottom he is thankful that no guards are around.  He knows it would be a shame to be thwarted by coincidence so he hurries down the hall ahead of him, and turns right at the first opportunity.  He searches for multiple minutes with no luck finding Saena, then suddenly they bump into each other, not watching where they're going in their frantic search.  They each fall on their bottom, then almost immediately stand up and look at one another, saying to each other, "It's you!"

	Beio reaches for his sheathed Falchion and asks, "Why are you here, girl?"  Saena scoffs, not even bothering to reach for her dagger, but she still replies, "Revenge.  I'm here to kill Rioco and avenge my parents.  Do you plan to stand in my way?"  Beio doesn't even have to think to know who Saena is talking about.  He crosses his arms defiantly and says, "I am.  You must have the wrong person, Rioco is a trusted member of this town's law enforcement."  Saena growls in frustration and replies, "Yeah, 'trusted' being the operative word.  If you trust him that much there's no way you could possibly know of the kinds of things he's doing behind your back!"  This Beio is forced to think about, and he comes to a solution that's a bit of a compromise.  With a sigh he says, "I'll take you to him, but unless you can prove in some way that what you're saying is true I won't allow you to go through with your so-called revenge."  "Fair enough."  Said Saena, who put her hands on her hips as she waited for Beio to show her the way.  They started running toward their destination almost immediately, with Beio taking the lead and Saena following close behind as planned.

	Beio leads Saena out of the house, knowing that Rioco's patrol area is near the town gate.  When he gets back out onto the roof he looks at Saena and explains to her, "We'll need to be careful.  My fellow guards of the lord's house saw me enter the residence and I had told them of my intention to capture you.  Knowing how impulsive they can be, I wouldn't put it past them to label me a traitor if they see you with me.  Come on, before someone sees us."  When he's done with his explanation, Beio pulls a length of rope out of a bag tied to his waist, and then pulls an arrow out of his quiver.  He ties one end of the rope to the shaft of the arrow, then pulls out his bow and strings it.  He nocks the arrow and shoots it at a tree that's not too near but also not too far from them, then while holding the other end of the rope he offers a hand to Saena and says, "Let's go, this is the safest way I could think of."  Saena chuckled and said, "You really have thought of everything.  Well, actually not everything, since I have my own method of getting away without being spotted.  You go ahead with your method; mine is more sophisticated."  The mention of such a method piqued Beio's curiosity, but he decided to save his curiosity for later and instead just used the rope to get over the fence around the lord's property.

	With Beio on the other side, Saena pulls something out of a back at her waist, a cylindrical capsule with a button on top.  She presses the button, and the capsule opens by lengthening, revealing inside of it a gauntlet-type device with a built-in mechanical grappling hook that works via spring propulsion.  She slips it on and aims the hook at the same tree that Beio shot his arrow into, and squeezes a lever on the inside of the mechanism, causing a click.  The hook, which is attached to a length of chain, is immediately shot out of the mechanism at an impressive speed and soon strikes the tree.  The hook hits the tree with more than enough force behind it to be lodged deep inside the bark and thus be securely anchored.  Saena then pushes a blue button, and what sounds like a crank can be heard turning inside the machine.  The function causing the cranking sound starts to quickly reel the chain into the machine, and because of how firmly the hook is stuck in the tree, Saena is pulled toward it instead of the other way around.  She is pulled to the tree almost as quickly as the hook was shot from the machine.  She puts her feet on the ground before dislodging the hook as well as Beio's arrow, then she waves to the swordsman.  Beio runs to Saena, who offers the man his arrow and rope.

	Beio accepts his equipment gratefully, and takes the rope off of the arrow before discarding the latter after seeing the shaft in two pieces.  Before continuing Beio says to Saena, "That's an interesting tool you have."  "It is, isn't it?"  Asked Saena, "I'll have to go back where I found it later and see if I can't find some other cool things."  Beio shrugs his shoulders and smiles before continuing to lead Saena to Rioco's post.  They see Rioco moments before they arrive at his post, and the scrawny looking lime-haired man takes off running the other way, revealing that he also saw them and he apparently has something to hide.  Beio growls in frustration and goes into a sprint to try to catch up to Rioco, but he isn't able to reach him before he starts slowing down from exhaustion.  Luckily, Saena finds another path that she is able to use to intercept Rioco and catch him, but while Saena wants so badly to kill the man, Beio has questions.  The swordsman walks toward Rioco and Saena and says to the former, "I'm going to be blunt Rioco.  Did you kill Saena's parents?"

	Rioco takes a quick glance around, then returns his gaze to Beio and says, "N-no I didn't!  Can I go now?"  In response to Rioco’s hasty answer, Beio hums thoughtfully and replies "You seem awfully eager to get away from us, just like you were extremely desperate not to get caught.  In fact, how did you know we were after you?"  Rioco gulps and takes a couple of heavy breaths, but then he looks at Saena again and his fear seems to disappear in an instant.  He bears a sudden smile that looks quite wicked before leaping out of Saena's grip and landing on his feet behind her.  Rioco draws a knife from a sheath at his waist and dashes toward Beio and Saena at a speed that catches them slightly off guard.  He slashes at Saena with his knife, and while the black-haired swordswoman is able to evade with a backflip, the knife still reaches her enough to draw blood.  Beio watches Saena evade, then looks at Rioco in shock while thinking, ‘What's with Rioco?  Does this mean that the girl was telling the truth?’  Rioco smiles as he looks at the blood on the blade of his knife, and with a sadistic smirk he licks it up.  Shortly after he says to Saena, "Impressive.  I applaud your evasive ability, princess, let's see if that'll be enough to save you."  Beio growls and runs to Saena's side, grasping the hilt of his sword as Saena does the same with hers.  Rioco's smirk widens, and he dashes at Saena and Beio again.