The Story of Hanna/Chapter I - Meetup with a Mysteroius Young Man
Today is a perfectly normal day in the village of Peonia, located in the kingdom of Gallia just a few hours horse ride away from Eletria. Weather is nice, sunny with couple of fluffy white clouds. Orphanage hosted by the charitable owners of the local church is sure to find you a lot of work, from cleaning and laundry all the way to helping local elderly, but that's only for the daylight hours. Early this morning, you got your assignment for this late evening from your master and your owner. You have a very special customer today. You are excited about it, because it's a young man you've never met before. You don't get to see a lot of fresh faces these days, especially not young faces, because of your well-paying regulars. He has requested you in normal attire, and you are happy to oblige. It's almost nine o'clock in the evening and it's time for you to go to work. You leave your room at the top floor or a large apartment building and take a nice stroll through the village before you enter your workplace, small hotel called "Peonia R&R".
Now, you are sitting comfortably at the edge of the bed, flailing your legs, waiting restlessly. You are blushing, and your heart is beating fast. Who is it? What kind of man is he? What could he request from you? Your customers usually love roleplay and honestly, so do you. Playing different characters and pretending is always a fun way to spice things up a little bit. He's probably not looking for anything too extreme. He did request you in normal clothes after all. Despite that, you have done your best to look as adorable as possible. You are wearing white shoes, a blue loose skirt, long enough to cover your knees, white silky panties and white knee socks with light grey diamond pattern. Your sleeveless, frilly blouse is also creamy white with only a small, white undershirt beneath. As for your hair, you had your hair braided, with a cute, large, blue ribbon holding it all together. Overall, your appearance is very modest and typical for Gallian girl from countryside.
Finally, you hear two soft knocks on the door. He's here. "Come in!" you answer gleefully, with your eyes locked to door. A tanned man no older than eighteen enters the room, closing the door. At 161 centimeters tall, he's fairly short for his age, but he's in peak physical condition. His eyes are dark brown, and his short tar black colored hair looks messy and badly maintained. He's skinny, yet muscular, and wears tight black sleeveless shirt with green leather pants suited for rough conditions. His brand-new black shoes look especially robust. The black, large tattoos over his right shoulder and arm instantly make you recognize him as a Roman, and two long combat knives on his waist reveal his profession as an adventurer. He closes the door and looks back at you. "Welcome!" you say, sounding happy and cheerful.
"Hi…" he says, sounding and looking all shy with a smooth smile on his face. You didn't expect a shy man. Then again, he's young, and probably inexperienced. He looks at you closely and he seems very surprised for some reason. His eyes glace on your body and your clothes, and when he realizes that you're also checking out his appearance, he blushes and quickly collects himself. "So, you're Hanna, right?"
"Yes!"
"I must say, you're much younger than I thought."
You just love it when people comment you about your size and age. It means a lot for you. For you being a child is almost like a religion of self-worship. You press both your thumbs against your palms, holding four fingers up on both hands, and you show them to him. "Hanna is eight!"
"I see…" he says, looking even more shy than before, but at very least still smiling. It seems to you that from the very start he is into you, which is a very positive thing for overall enjoyment for both of you. You just worry that his shyness could hinder his performance. He decides to remove his weapons from his waist along with combat belt that comes with leathery sheaths. "You must be uncomfortable with my weapons, so let me remove them right away."
You shake your head and say: "Not at all. Hanna thinks they are cool. What's your name?"
"I'm Leon." He walks up to you and offers you his hand. You look at it a little confused, since you were not expecting a handshake from a customer. You have never had a handshake in these kind of conditions before. "Nice to meet you."
You offer him your hand back and experience the most tender and careful handshake you've ever felt in years. He is holding your hand delicately like a flower as if worried he would crush it. "Nice to meet you too. Are you perhaps Roman?"
"You are correct."
You clap your hands together once and decide to switch to latin, language of the Romans, and offer your customer a pleasant surprise: "Would you prefer if Hanna spoke latin then?"
"Oh, well done!", he answers, complimenting you in his mother's tongue. "You've got a heavy islander's accent, but otherwise you get full grades."
You giggle happily. "Hanna isn't fluent…"
"It's all right. We can talk in gallian."
"Alright!" you say and nod, and then switch back to the language of the land. "Are you an adventurer, mister?"
"Ah, yes."
"What's your occupation?"
"I'm a rogue, but I also know space bending techniques."
"Very interesting! You must be quite talented then!"
Leon seems to be happy to hear your praise. "Well… I do not want to brag…"
"No need to be humble with Hanna."
"Well, I'm sure you've got a lot of questions, but I actually came here for a reason."
"Yes, of course…" you answer, silently, rubbing your thighs together in excitement.
"We've got a lot of time to talk, but to sum it up so you get a gist of it, things have been a little bit chaotic for Chad Mason in the past couple of days. He has gone missing."
As you hear the name of Chad Mason, your master and your owner, your heart skips a beat instantly. And as you hear that he has gone missing, it skips another one. You stop all your fidgeting and cute act and freeze in place, shocked. "Are you two friends?"
"No, I work for him. He's an old friend of my late grandfather. They were close friends, and I've known him since I was a child. He finds my services to be reliable. He even contacted me after going missing, from an unknown location and sent me on a quest to help him. His first mission was for me to fetch you."
"Fetch Hanna?" you ask, surprised. "No, oh no, Hanna cannot leave this place. Hanna is a slave."
"It's per orders of Chad. Your life is in danger."
Orders from your owner, he says? Well, you can't help that, obviously. There are just few problems. For starters, you've heard nothing of this. If someone truly had orders from your master to be able to take you away, you would've surely heard of it. And then there's the part where you doubt his honesty. "How does Hanna know you're not lying?"
"He gave me this latter", Leon says and conjures a letter. He did say he knew space bending techniques and that is adequate proof. He can store items in an invisible closet that works almost like an inventory from a video game. He offers the letter to you, and you read it hastily. It only has few sentences in it and is complete with familiar handwriting and a signature you recognize. It simply reads:
"Hello, Hanna. I'm sorry I have not been able to meet you in a long time. It has been a hectic time for me. Anyway, you can trust Leon with absolutely everything. Please, do as he says."
You raise your head and stare at Leon. You're sure that this was written by Chad, but it's missing an official seal of authenticity, which is usually included in letters from Chad Mason. You hand it back to him and say: "This could be a forgery."
"For further proof, he told me some secrets about you and your past." You cross your arms, avoiding direct eye contact with him. "They're secrets only known to him and you, so me knowing them should constitute as further proof."
"Stop bluffing."
"I know you're the sixth child of king William the fifth, the king of Nova Albion. That would make you a princess." You don't dare to utter a word in response. He is spot on, and you're bad at lying. He would surely see through any of your potential lies. "Am I correct?"
"You are indeed correct…"
"I also happen to know your real age. You're fifteen, not eight."
Now he got you visibly irritated. You were trying to hide it, but you just can't resist your eye twitching. "Such slander…" you mutter to yourself. "Insolent peasant…"
"Well, you do pass as an eight-year-old despite being of legal age…" he says, almost as if doubting your true age.
"Of course!" you state loudly. "Hanna is forever eight!"
"That's a very tall claim", he says and lets out a soft laugh. He obviously doesn't believe you. Then again, who can blame him? No fifteen-year-old girl obviously should look as young as you do. You wouldn't find it surprising if he did actually believe you were eight and thought that Chad was just messing with him. You don't bother inquiring him about this. "Anyhow, we're getting sidetracked. Do you trust me now?"
"Hanna thinks that she has to trust you."
"Good. You're being pursued just like Chad is, or so he suspects. He suspects Chaos, which is why he's also worried for you."
"Never heard. Who are they?"
"An Eldritch worshiping cult."
"Oh, that DOES make sense", you think out loud, and get a little nervous at the same time. You thought you would've been over those monsters already, but that doesn't seem to be the case. "They did destroy papa's kingdom after all. They probably still want to enslave Hanna."
"Do you know why?"
"Well you said it yourself. Hanna is a princess. She's a war trophy fit for any foreign conqueror."
"Is there anything else it could be though?"
So, he doesn't seem to know about all your secrets. Now you're convinced that he doesn't know about the fact that you possess valuable knowledge about the holy grail of alchemy, immortality, be it the philosopher's stone, or your potion of youth. It's something you've researched ever since you became fascinated with the idea of staying forever young. You don't care about being immortal, but you do care about being child. You don't want to grow up. You never want to become an adult, not even an adolescent. You wanted to be forever eight years old, so you created the potion of youth. Principles of this potion and philosophers stone are the same: they offer immortality at little to no cost at all. Only one man in the history of mankind has managed to create this legendary stone, but alas, he brought this knowledge to grave with him. As a girl who was able to replicate part of his genius, you're the sole exception to this rule in the world and just like the legendary man before you, you are determined to take this knowledge to the grave with you. You've only ever shared your potion and your secret with your master, but not even he knows the recipe. The eldritch might suspect you of having this knowledge and might want to get hold of it. Should they ever catch you and know of your secret, they would torture the answers out of you.
"You're clearly thinking about something."
"Well, yes… Hanna thinks she knows why they're after her…" you say, partially dodging the question.
Leon looks at you, suspicious, but drops the subject. "Well, whatever the reason, it doesn't really matter to me. My mission is to guard you and help you escape."
"It's not going to be easy."
"How come?"
"This place is heavily guarded. Escaping will be very hard."
"I see. You know this place, so what do you think? When should we try?"
((If you want to take the longer route, pick "Right away." Other than that, they're mostly copy and paste. Whenever that is a good or a bad idea… Well, I'll let you be the judge.))
- Right away. ((Work in process.))