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(( For my next entry (Day 14) I will need a total of 1543 words to be caught up and back on track. That seems like a lot of words, but on average I have been writing between 2000 and 2500 words every time I sit down at my computer so I should be able to make that easily after I get some rest. It's 3 AM here now so I'll probably post a new chapter (for Day 14) in the afternoon sometime XD))

Dream World Mirau by Josephina Mari
Day Thirteen of NaNoWriMo

“This is the weapon shop. I shouldn’t have to tell you think Baer, but please be on your best behavior. Whatever you touch you have to buy understood.” Karou said in a slightly scary tone of voice. How much information passed between the two of them while I was asleep on the way over to Coasta Bleu? Karou said two days passed the last time I was asleep so who knows how long I was out this time. It was odd how quickly Karou and Baer seemed to become friends, but in all honesty we could use all the friends we could get in this fight. “I understand Karou. As I said before, there is only one thing I’m after...anything else is worthless to me in comparison.” Baer said quiet bluntly and then he wandered over to the area of magical based staves and tomes to see if he could find any thing he wanted. Karou and I walked over to the area with the swords and daggers first to see if we could find a good training sword for me. I watched Karou curiously as he drew blade after blade from its sheath to check its handling, weight, and sharpness only to return them back deciding that he didn’t want them. After he had returned the fifty sword back to its sheath I was starting to become skeptical if the right sword for me even existed in this shop and it seemed like the Weapon store owner was eyeing us from the check out area to see if we intended to buy anything or if Karou was only going to play around with them. I let out a sigh of relief as I heard Karou say “This is the one. It’s light and shows no signs of wear on it. It should be pretty durable based on the materials used to make it. If we are lucky it might last throughout your training Mari. After your training is complete we will come back and I’ll let you pick out the weapon that you like the most. It will give you something to look forward too yes?” Karou said before he handed me the chosen sword in its sheath to attach to the belt I wore around my waist. I now knew the belt had two purposes in this world; one was to hold up the persons pants and the other was to help carry ones sword around with them.

Once my new sword was properly secured to the left side of my belt Karou signaled me to follow him over to the projectile weapons. There were at least twenty different kinds of bows hung up on the display wall and eight different varieties of arrows available to pick from, so I had a feeling we would be there for awhile. Karou took down a smaller looking bow from the display wall and handed it to me. “Hold the bow with your right hand and draw back the string to about an outstretched hands length away from your shoulder. How does the tension in the string feel? It shouldn’t be too tight or it will break when you try to fire an arrow, but it shouldn’t be too loose either or the arrow won’t get enough velocity to travel very far. This is your standard short bow. It’s a good starting point since you don’t have to draw back as far compared to the larger bows. The bow you have is better for closer ranged combat. The larger bows like that one there is more used for distance attacks and one hit sniping. That’s a little advanced for you right now so we will stick with the short bows.” Karou said watching as I drew back on the bow string a few times and released it to see how well it responded. I listened carefully as Karou explained the differences between the short bow and standard bow to make sure I was getting the right one for my training tasks. The short bow sounded more at my level right now so I nodded to Karou and said “I think this bow will do nicely for me. It’s not too heavy and responds well when I draw back and release. I can’t wait to try it out.” This reminded me that I would need arrows for that, but aside from the price, I hadn’t the foggist idea of what type of arrow to pick. There were some arrows with gold tips, some with silver, some with feathers on the end, others with no feathers, some with metal shafts, some with wood shafts, some made of completely metal and then on the far right were arrows made completely of carved wood including the arrow head.

I looked over at Karou about to ask him what he would recommend, but before I could get any words out Karou pulled a leather quiver down from a hook on the wall, and then he helped me put the quiver on before he pondered over the arrow selection for a moment or two. Karou decided to go with the wooden arrows with the silver colored metal arrow heads. He filled the quiver on my back with about thirty arrows and then he said “I think that’s all the bare essentials. Let’s go see how Baer is fairing in the magical department. It’s been quiet for a while now, so I’m guessing he still hasn’t found his legendary whatever you call it book.” Karou said fumbling through his memory for the name that he didn’t recall. “Hey Baer, are you almost ready to go? I think we have everything we need now so we are going to pay now.” I told him as I tried to peek up over his shoulder to see what Baer was looking at. That was not an easy task since Baer was slightly taller then me. “It’s here...My search is over! Look it’s right there just on the other side of this wall over glass. If only I could touch it, to feel the pages within my grasp, and to read those words...you don’t know what this moment means to me! It’s a dream come true. This is destiny, that’s the only word that can describe this moment.” Baer said with both his hands on the glass separating him and the magical spell book he wanted quiet desperately it seemed. Karou rolled his eyes for a moment then he walked over to the check out station and explained to the Weapon Shop owner that he wanted to pay for the sword, bow, quiver, and arrows I was carrying around with me now and he also wanted to buy the “Breeze Class” tome the blond haired guy at the display counter was drooling over. Not literally drooling of course, but close to it. “It’s called Blazen Karas and yes I would like very much to buy it...Wait Karou are you saying you will buy this for me? I promise I’ll make it up to you someday. I know the prefect way I can repay you. I’m going to protect you and Mari with my new spell. It will be so awesome!” Baer said as he watched the Weapon Shop owner unlock the glass display case to retrieve the book Baer wanted from inside. The Weapons Shop owner then handed the book over to Baer and Karou once again picked up the tab for mine and Baer’s shopping spree. I planned to replay Karou all the money he spent on me someday and somehow. I didn’t ask for any of this and at the same time I was grateful for all he has done for me. I watched Baer curiously as he opened up the Blazen Karas Tome expecting something spectacular to happen after Baer made such a big fuss over it earlier. Much to my disappointment the tome looked like a regular book written in this world’s native language. What was the big deal? Maybe if I knew how to read the language it would make more sense to me why Baer wanted it so badly.

“Basic preparations are now complete. Let’s return to the inn and get something to eat. After that we should get some rest. Training begins tomorrow morning. Baer would you like to help us out? Mari will need to learn how to block and counter magical attacks as well so we could use your assistance with that.” Karou’s words scared me a little just then. Did that mean I would have to fight Baer? I don’t think I could do such a thing. Baer is my friend so going against him even for training seemed wrong. “Hmmm I suppose I can help you guys out with your training sessions. It’s the least I can do for all you’ve done for me. Why not? This should be fun right Mari?” Baer said to me as if he was curious to see what I could really do. Karou told him I had “amnesia” right? I hoped Karou kept his story going a bit longer to save me the trouble of trying to explain what I still knew very little about. At this point the whole amnesia cover up was starting to feel like it had some truth to it since everything felt new to me even things that would seem second nature. Tomorrow was going to be interesting and full of hard work I was sure of that. Once we arrived back at the inn, I sat down with Karou and Baer to eat dinner at the inn’s lobby restaurant. Baer tried his best to explain the menu to me and describe what ingredients made up the meals listed, but most of the items I had no idea what they were or tasted like. Karou decided to order first while I was still undecided and Baer was making some recommendations based on food he had ate before. Karou’s dinner was served to him first. It looked like some various types of chopped up fruit for a side and then for the main course he had some kind of larger fruit which was cut in half to allow the chef to take out the seeds from in side of the fruit. After that some white cream was put inside the fruit with some small orange round things sprinkled over the top.

I watched Karou for a few seconds curiously as he picked up a piece of fruit with a fork like eating utensil then he dipped it into the white cream and ate it whole. “Hey Baer what is that called that Karou is eating? What’s that cream stuff taste like?” I said in a low voice to Baer trying not to draw attention to myself from the other people sitting at the tables near by. “That is called ‘Wild Isle Fruit and Cream Hors D'oeuvre’ and it is usually something you order before the main dish arrives. It has five kinds of fruit and the white cream is made of lightly sweetened milk and other ingredients. Not quite sure how it’s made, but it tastes really good. It’s a popular dish ordered here since the fruit is delivered fresh by boat daily from the outer continent Mesa. Once the fruit is sent in land it doesn’t taste as good. You should try some Mari. I think you’ll like it.” Baer said as he signaled the waitress over to the table to take his order. “It sounds really good. I think I will try it Baer. Could you please order a plate for me? I might say it wrong and get something completely different.” I said feeling a little embarrassed. Baer smiled at me before he looked over at the waitress and said in the native language of Mirau “Lursa sen deu Liel Disl Cout Hors D'oeuvre kai mua ero friend.Cerdure.”(Please bring another Wild Isle Fruit starter plate for his lady friend. Thank you.) The waitress nodded to Baer before she excused herself to prepare my order and Baer’s. Karou was nearly done with his plate by the time the waitress returned with Baer’s plate, which had some kind of meat and an orange colored sauce on the side that reminded me of apple sauce, but it was a different color and probably tasted different as well. Shortly after she served Baer, she was gone again but the waitress returned rather swiftly this time with my plate that looked identical to the one Karou ordered. It seemed like the large frit you at last, or at least that is how Karou preferred to finish the plate off.

I was in no hurry to finish my fruit plate since I wanted to take in all the new tastes and try to pick out my favorites. The sweet cream really did make the fruit taste better, so I could understand why this dish was so popular and even why Karou like it. Once Baer, Karou, and I were finished eating Baer called the waitress over to the table again to pay the bill for the three of us. I really needed to start making some money in this world so I didn’t have to rely on my friends to pay for me all the time. Maybe I could get a part time job somewhere once we decided what city we were going to stay in. We needed to look Baer’s Master tomorrow after training was over as well. We had a busy day ahead of us indeed, so going to bed early didn’t sound like such a bad idea. I walked with Baer and Karou over to the hallway containing our rooms of the inn and then I remembered that there is three of us in our little group but we only rented two rooms. “Karou we need to check out another room for Baer.” I said sounding a little worried. He wasn’t with us when we checked in so it was possible Karou might have forgotten about him. “Don’t worry Mari. The room next door is setup with two beds so Baer and I will be sharing a room. We will see you in the morning.” Karou said sounding a little worn out from all the excitement going on lately. “Sleep well Mari. If you need anything let us know.” Baer said then I watched as Karou opened the door and then both of them disappeared inside. “Good night my friends.” I said smiling as I went into my own room. Once inside I locked the door before I went over to my temporary bed and then I started to disarm myself. First I took my sword off my belt and put it on the floor next to my bed, and then I laid my bow and quiver down as well. I put my bag of clothes and potions in a large armchair near a nightstand about ten feet away from the bed. I picked up my backpack, which by now felt like it weighed a ton, and put it over in the armchair as well before I took off my shoes. I let them lay on the floor where they fell and then I climbed into bed and pulled the blankets up over my head waiting for the calming darkness to take me back home.