After a long day of slaying the bad guys, taking bandits treasures and pretty much causing chaos in her every step, Lina Inverse finally decided to lay down and rest. Her and her companions Zelgadiss Greywords, Gourry Gabriev and Amelia Wil Tessla Sailoon checked into the nearest inn and went their separate ways to their rooms.
At times like these, with the most recent Mazoku/Ryzoku war going on, Lina could go for days without a satisfying meal and a good nights sleep. Running into the random Mazoku or dragon and never being able to find a village or town that hadn't been burned down. They had finally arrived in Atlas City, one of the few cities that hadn't already been used as a battle ground.
A restful nights sleep would do her good, Lina thought as she prepared for bed. Maybe she would even forget for a while about the death and destruction she had been seeing constantly ever since the war started. She lied down, shifted around to get comfortable and pulled the covers up to her neck making sure none of the warm air underneath the covers could escape. Smiling as her body fell into a deep sleep and dreaming about a large feast with all of her favorite foods.
Lina awoke suddenly. The moonlight, was shining down on her face, through an open window that was letting in a cold breeze. She got up grumbling to herself, she thought she had closed the window before she went to bed. Shivering, she reached out and grabbed the window handle and pulled it closed. She turned around and started to walk back to bed when suddenly she stopped. Almost leaping back to the window she flung it open. A cold, misty wind swept past her face. The smell of ocean salt and the sound of waves filled her senses.
Lina couldn't believe her eyes. Waves were crashing up against a high sea cliff right below her. Looking up at the moon, shining brightly with no clouds to hide it's face. Lina couldn't exactly remember if it was cloudy out when she went to bed, but she knew for sure that her room did not have any kind of an ocean view. Atlas City wasn't even close to a large lake, let alone an ocean.
"W-what? What the hell?" She whispered loudly to herself.
A gust of wind flew through the open window sending Lina's hair in all directions. She quickly closed the window and fixed her hair as much as she could without a mirror handy. She conjured up a light spell and grabbed a bath robe that was lying on a chair opposite of her bed. The doors of her room that led into the hallway were covered in beautiful carvings of dragons. Lina quietly opened the large doors and crept out in to the hallway.
Just like the carved doors the hallway too, was decorated. Other doors that Lina could see had more dragons on them, similar to hers. Paintings and statues of more dragons were randomly placed along the walls. She jumped suddenly, when she saw a suit of armor, thinking someone was standing right in front of her. Stepping closer to the armor she noticed that no human could have worn it. The helmet had two large horns coming out of the top, two eye holes on the side and the metal ran out forming a snout with two nose holes. The chest piece was wider than three men put together and a spear that went up and touched the ceiling stood beside it.
Lina walked down the large and long hallway, examining different paintings and statues. Some the paintings had disturbing scenes of dragons slaughtering monsters, monstersslaughtering both dragon and human, and battle scenes where the blood and guts seemed to stick out the most. But what Lina noticed the most was that many of the paintings had frames made of gold and soon Lina was wandering up and down hallways, checking every room that the doors to it weren't locked, looking for what she loved the most besides food. Treasure. Where ever she was, the owner had to be loaded.
Most of the time she either came upon another bedroom like the one she woke up in or a locked door. And after about an hour of walking around she began to get a little worried. She seemed to be lost in a large mansion that was located who knows where and the only sign of life was the torches that lit the hallways. Someone had to have lit them and still be around.....or else they were enchanted and never went out.
Turning down another corridor she came to a dead end. Lina sighed and turned around to retrace her steps back to the main hallway she was going down earlier. To her surprise standing only a few feet in front of her was a man holding a torch in his hand. Her light spell extinguished suddenly before she could identify the man.
"Zelgadiss, Gourry is that you?" she asked nervously as she prepared a fireball in her hand.
"I'm so glad I found you Lina Inverse," a familiar voice stated, "It's dangerous to walk these halls at night, never know what you might find around the corner"
The light revealed only an evil smirk on the mans face as he came closer to Lina.
"Don't come any closer!" Lina screamed and pulled her hand out from behind her back with a large ball of fire in it.
But before she could do anything a hand came out from the darkness and grabbed her arm. The man pulled Lina closer to him and the torch. She struggled to get free but his grip tightened.
"Lina, stop it! Oww, you scratched me! Hold still! LINA!!!!" The man yelled still holding on tight to Lina's arm.
Lina looked up at the man. She could finally see his whole face as the torch flickered only about a foot away from it. He had spiky green hair with a horn sticking out of his head. There were stripes on the side of his face and his mouth was thin and frowning at her. Then she noticed his gold eyes. She could see the familiar sight of both good and evil illuminating out of them. "v-Valgarv?"
He had finally let her go to inspect the scratch Lina had made on his arm. "Yes. It's me."He snorted. "What do you think you're doing wandering the hallways?"
Lina was completely dumbfounded. The last time she had seen Valgarv he was just an egg, and that was just over a year ago. She remembered, Valgarv was trying to kill her for the death of Garv, his master. He somehow became part of the dark lord Darkstar which of whom she destroyed. Valgarv had been reborn and Fillia, a golden dragon Lina had been traveling with at the time, had taken the egg home to raise it. It had only been a year since that had happened. Even though she didn't know how fast dragons can grow up she was sure that Valgarv couldn't be this old yet. He could be a kopii, she thought, but who would have made it.
Valgarv noticed her puzzled face and spoke up. "Don't worry, we'll answer all your questions."
Lina looked up and opened her mouth to say something but he quickly cut her off, "In the morning. It's too late to go into a big explanation of things." He yawned. "Follow me, I'll bring you back to your room. You'll want to get to bed right away and go to sleep."
"Why?" Lina asked not trusting enough to follow him.
He began to walk away as he answered her, "So you don't have lots of time to think about things like why you're here and why I look like this. If you start to think about that you'll be up all night and probably be cranky in the morning. I don't think I'll be able to handle somebody like you cranky. So hurry up. I want to get to bed too." He vanished around the corner.
Lina jogged up and turned the corner " Hey what do you mean 'somebody like me'"
Valgarv stopped near a statue of a dragon and pulled on it horn. All wall opened up and he ushered Lina through it. They went down a short corridor and went through a door. Lina found herself back in the room she had woke up in.
"There you go. Your stuff is already in the closet so don't worry about that. Now please don't leave your room again. You're just lucky you didn't run into any of the monsters that roam the halls. Go to sleep and don't come out until the sun is completely up, ok. We'll probably be in the dining room. Just follow the main hallways, you'll find it. G' night." With that said, Valgarv went back into the corridor they were just in before Lina could ask him anything.
Lina decided to take Valgarv's advice and not think about anything so she could sleep. She didn't trust him, not one bit. But she knew if he was going to do anything he would have done it earlier. She got back into bed and curled back up in the covers. After about ten minutes she fell asleep.