Kohaku's Diary

25^th , Month of new leaves, 2017

Diary, Today we woke up, breakfasted and walked to the middle of nowhere. This is when Cordelia waved her hands in the air and made two large armoured trucks appear. It's funny how I would have been amazed at such a magical feat last week.

Isocretes, Allanon, Hou-jin, myself and Static jumped into one of the trucks, the rest of my companions entered the other and we started to drive. Static and I settled onto  bunk at the back, even after resting all night I was still rather sore and jelly-legged after riding the dumb horses.

We drove for quite a long time. I'm glad to say we found some proper roads to drive on so it wasn't too uncomfortable, although Houjin could work on his breaking; I almost flew off my seat when we stopped at a road block! We waited here for a good 40 minutes whilst Cordelia's truck went off to collect some kind of fancy fighting items.

We set off again and I overhear Allanon asking Hou-jin what we're doing next, I can't remember all of Hou-jin's reply, only two words: Black Road.

I'm reminded of the party of brave trainers back home who found the black road, and the poor state the few who returned were in. It's a sobering memory, but this truck must be about to keep us safe, right? Anyway these guys know more about this road than I do. I even heard Cordelia say it would be a piece of cake! (I'm going to pretend it wasn't dripping in sarcasm).

We stopped for a break at a resturant, I was a little suprised to see that here the sky was yellow and there were three moons in the sky, quite a sight.

We ordered food from an inhuman creature with tenticles instead of arms, but the food seemed good and normal. Fane talked to Cordelia whilst we were ordering meals, and I overheard him say that he feeds on blood. I've heard of tribes of people who would drink ox blood, but only because food was scarce in their lands. Why would someone choose blood over food? I can recall the stories from my childhood about jubokko, trees growing on a battlefield that would get a taste for human blood and trap people in its branches to suck them dry with a hollow twig used like a straw. I used to laugh at such tales, but now it all seems quite possible now.

I suspect that this Fane is some kind of oni, a demon thing. Time will tell if he means us any harm.

I chose to sit near Allanon after this. He spoke of his history in the military, he calls himself a mage but says he can't produce magic. What do you call a mage that cannot do magic? Not a mage.

 At least he looks like he would be a good fighter.

26^th , Month of new leaves, 2017

Diary, We carry on our journey, spending a night at fort Chanis - some military place, and leaving with a convey of vehicles similar to ours. As we approached the black road I felt queezy, looking out the window I saw deformed and tortured trees in a landscape devoid of life. Cordelia arrives to wish Hou-Jin luck and instructs him to keep driving, no matter what happens.

The other vehicles fan out and shot at the black road as we started to drive across it.

 Poor Static was trembling and I felt, I don’t know... unclean. Like the evil of this road was in the air, sticking to my skin.

 Isocretes slumped down and started to moan, he looked very unwell and I tried to comfort him when a screen appeared before us with 5 blinking red lights, a chair also appeared in which Allanon got into before it moved back into the ceiling. I yelled at him, where are you going? "I don't know" he replied. Well, he looked like he kind of knew what he was doing so I had faith that he would figure it out.

Bam! Something heavy and large hit the truck, Allanon shouted down to get ready to fight. Fight? What could I do inside a truck? I'd never been in a battle before where anyone was in any real danger... Where was the arena? What were the rules? I stood there like a lemon as the metal of the roof started to tear. Poor Isocretes forced himself up to get the black sword and move to the front passenger seat to fend off whatever it out there.

The metal teared more to create a sizeable hole and a large scaly head showed, it's huge eye leered at Isocretes who heroically swung his sword in the creature’s direction, sadly he couldn't quite reach. The creature went for Hou-Jin who swerved the truck, almost dislodging the beast. I thought we would be free of it, but it came back and attacked Isocretes with some kind of acidic spit attack, he fell down screaming.

So Isocretes was down, Hou-jin and Allanon busy, who was left? Damn, I was. I stood there worrying for what felt like an age. I couldn’t fight like this! I didn't even know what type of creature this was, nor its weaknesses or strengths. With my initial panic dying down, I started growing cross with myself, after all, am I not a great mogwai trainer? I have four gym badges! Four!!

I instructed Static to use his electric attack, he seemed to have picked up my newfound determination and stopped his shaking. Nothing can keep my stubborn little Static down for long! As he attacked I grabbed one of these guns, the larger one. I pointed the gun, and once Static has finished, I shot. Instead of metal, the gun shot with a strange light that Allanon called "plasma" he instructed me on how to make it shoot stronger and I shot again, just as the creature was about to spit. It fell off and we carried on, finally making it over the black road. Just.

I feel clean again and joyful, a part of me just didn't believe that we had made it. Isocretes wasn't as high spirited, his leg looked bad, really bad. In fact I think I could see some bone around the melted flesh, eugh...

Cordelia had to break Allanon out of his ceiling chair which was apparently a control for a large gun on the roof. She also fits Isocretes with a high tech medical case, which can heal his terrible wound in about 35 hours. Remarkable, maybe I could take one of these to the old mogwai hospital I used to work in back in Birchwood, they would love to study it.